


All Things Considered

by KnotTippity (Kiss_Shining)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphys is Actually Relevant to the MC, Angst and Comfort, Anime References, But if You Do Prepare For The Long Haul, Character Order in The Way They Appear, Chara’s Affected By LOVE (But Still Has Their Senses), Circumstantial Nymphomania, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Extreme slow burn, Fluff, Give it a Try (I guess), Mentions of Kangaroo Court, Mentions of Scientology, Mentions of past abuse, Minor Character Death, Monster Rights, Multi, Napstablook Needs More Love, Non-Binary Frisk, Papyrus is a cinnamon bun, People Will Probably Hate Reader, Plot Twist, Post-Genocide-Pacifist Route, Protective Sans, Psychological Disorders, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader-Insert, Sans is a Tad Bit Skeptical But He’ll Come Around Someday, Scientific Nonsense, Self-Esteem Issues, Social Anxiety, Social Awkwardness, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Trust Issues, Undyne is the Sister You Never Had, Worldbuilding (?), magic shenanigans, no beta we die like men, reader is female, shy reader, systematic racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-19 06:15:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22873117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiss_Shining/pseuds/KnotTippity
Summary: You lived in a modest apartment with four other eccentric tenants. With the money that your mother left for you after passing away, you were able to get by with the barest of essentials. When you weren’t holed up in your apartment, you attended a public university where no one gave you the time of day. But that was fine, because you weren’t good at talking to others anyways.But then you bumped into the one thing you never wanted to see: a monster.  You thought for sure that was the worst day of your life.But there were things much worse than bumping into a monster. Much, much worse.And you were going to have a front row seat to witness it all.(Repost.)
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sans (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Reposting this after two years because I've re-read it and happened to enjoy it. Will probably bring this fic back on board._
> 
> Hey, if you’re reading this note, welcome. I know, this fandom is beyond overrated, but I kind of wanted to make a fanfiction too, late as it might be. Visited this fandom again after listening to my old collection of Megalovania OSTs and fell in love with everyone all over again. I suppose I should thank you for taking the time out to read my fic, since you could have glossed right over this.
> 
> Welp, hope you enjoy this story. Feel free to leave comments below if you enjoyed it, if not, that’s fine too.

You woke up, feeling groggy and cranky. It felt like you drank way too much, went to sleep way too late, and crashed on the bed way too wildly. Your neck ached, and your mouth was dry. It didn’t really help that the right side of your body felt numb. Blearily glancing over, you saw the one person that you _really_ didn’t want to see.

Lying on your arm was a small girl with cherub cheeks and a small button nose. Her skin was clear, except for the hairline frown marks that already stuck out like a sore thumb on her face. She obviously had a nightmare, if the way she was dressed was any indication—a tiny black undershirt with white daisy dukes—and she clung onto you like a barnacle to a ship. Whenever she got like this, you couldn’t get her off of you even if your life depended on it. And you know you said that she could come sleep with you anytime, but sometimes…

Sighing, you slowly rose from the bed, feeling her grip tighten like a vice grip on your shirt. A sad smile made its way onto your face as you rubbed her cheek, and then you resolved yourself to carrying her until she finally awoke from her slumber. It was a bit cumbersome to open the door, but with all the times that Enma has done this, you were used to it by now.

You met the television set blaring in the common room, with a woman who was a year or two younger than you gazing at the screen. Next to her was another woman whose face was buried in a book that you couldn’t even begin to understand, tuning out everything with the headphones that she pointedly stuck on her ears. Hearing your entrance, the woman staring at the screen snapped her head towards you. She approached you with a smile and a tight hug, kissing Enma on the forehead before releasing the two of you.

“You’re awake! Good morning. And that’s where she was…how did you sleep?”

You let off a partially exasperated sigh. “I probably would have slept well if she didn’t come in the middle of the night. But it’s nothing I’m not used to. How long have you guys been up?”

“A while,” she admitted. “I couldn’t sleep well. Anita couldn’t either,” she added, her gaze sliding to the other woman. Anita’s violet irises slid to the three of you before returning back to her book, a small indication that she was listening. “So we decided to stay out here. Greet you and stuff before you went off to school. Isn’t it a bit early?”

“Better early than late,” you replied, and moved past her to start cooking. As sweet and bubbly as Imani was, and as good as she was at cleaning, she was terrible at cooking. When the four of you decided to share the apartment complex, you tried to make a schedule of daily chores. Everyone was ready to pitch in, but when it came time to cook, it was disastrous. Imani burned all of her dishes, Anita hated to cook and adamantly refused, Enma was much too young to cook, and Phoebe…she made interesting dishes for sure, but she was…well. She was something else. You didn’t trust her too much to cook.

Which left you.

You heated the pots and poured oil in one and water in the other, opting to make simple egg sandwiches for the sake of time. Next to you, Imani was humming to herself, happy that you were finally downstairs with her. She poured out four cups of orange juice and set them on the table.

“It was so quiet without you,” she said as she set up the table. “I tried to talk to Anita, but you know how she is…”

You tried not to laugh, imagining Imani waving her hand in front of Anita’s face, patting her cheek, plucking the book from her hands, until Anita probably blew up at her. And then, feeling hurt, Imani probably did the only thing she could: put the television up as loud as humanly possible. And then, in retaliation, Anita probably took out her headphones and stuck them on her ears, _just_ to make a point. For once, you were glad that your neighbors were elderly and weren’t too fussy about a bunch of noise.

“Well, you could talk to her now,” you said, a small smile still on your face. “I’m pretty much almost done. And while you’re at it, could you call Phoebe?”

She let out a noise of recognition before she quickly left the kitchen and ran upstairs. It was quiet for a few minutes, Anita most likely turning off the television in her absence, when Enma stirred next to you. Smiling, you rubbed her head, feeling the curls of her obsidian-tinted hair wrap around your finger.

“Good morning,” you said. “Ready to eat?”

Her sapphire irises gazed listlessly at you, before she slowly nodded. You lifted the arm that supported her body all this time, and she slid down, rubbing her eyes. And then she realized where she was, and she softly mumbled an apology before running to the bathroom.

By the time Enma came back, everyone was in the dining room, sitting in front of a wooden table that shook every time someone did so much as move. It was old, as was everything in the apartment, but it was good for the price you paid. After cleaning it up really nice, you found that the apartment was perfect for what you needed. So some old furniture here and there wasn’t really something worth complaining about.

You sat at the head of the table like you always did, greeting everyone with a small smile, before taking the first bite of your sandwich. As soon as you did, everyone else began eating, and the dining room became filled with the sound of chatter. And as soon as you were done and got up, Enma got up too, cutting herself off mid-sentence to grab onto your hand. Imani shot you a quizzical look and you shrugged, summing up her extra clinginess to be about her nightmare.

When Enma felt both your eyes and Imani’s eyes on her, she mumbled an apology to Imani, who quickly brushed it off.

“No need to apologize when you did nothing wrong,” she said with a big grin. She reached out to rub Enma’s head, and the girl bent towards her, encouraging the touch. But as soon as she did that, Imani squealed, jumping out her chair to envelop her in a hug, ignoring the exasperated sigh from Anita and the amused chuckle from Phoebe. She filled her ears up with compliments, and slowly Enma’s lips raised a bit. Imani was the only one who could make Enma smile like that, and you loved them both for it.

You gently released Enma’s hand as you retreated to your room. Gathering your clothes and books, you placed your backpack neatly against the wall. Checking the clock, you noticed that you were a bit behind schedule, something that you anticipated would happen. You took a shower, freshened up a bit further, and then grabbed your backpack. The television set was back on, and you glimpsed at it.

You didn’t care too much about monsters—besides the fact that they’re said to be the very things that go bump in the night, even though apparently that was wrong—but you didn’t really want to run into one either. Six years ago, after they broke some sort of barrier, they decided to assimilate with humans—which you’d be alright with if they weren’t so intimidating—and after the initial fear and dubiousness faded away, the one called the “King of Monsters” confessed to his sins.

He normally would have been jailed for more than a lifetime; after all, he had committed several offenses: first degree murder, wrongful imprisonment of a minor, conspiracy to murder, really, the list goes on and on. But when archeologists, scientists, and police officers investigated the mountain, and they were directed to the (miraculously) still intact bodies of the children and their glowing hearts called their “souls,” well, their wonder and greed for the monsters’ knowledge overpowered their sense of judgement. Perhaps it wasn’t that you feared monsters; perhaps you just hated that for a bit of knowledge, the death of six children was glossed over, but that really wasn’t their fault, was it?

Right now, you were watching a newsfeed about the latest happenings of monsters. Regardless of which monster killed which child, when word got out that they attacked innocent children—and that one of the children that fell in the mountain resolutely decided to stay with them and _represent_ them—the public went wild. The public was already mighty afraid of monsters—nothing like they had ever seen before just popped out of nowhere and claimed to be non-consensual inhabitants of a mountain that everyone thought was deserted—but that? That made it worse. They attacked monsters, and because monsters weren’t fully citizens, but ‘contemporary aliens,’ they didn’t have all the rights that humans had. The King and Queen of Monsters had to sign a contract that bound them to a lot of laws that gave them the freedom to inhabit the humans’ space, to vote and shop and work and do all the basic things humans did, but prevented them from defending themselves in any meaningful capacity.

The newsflash that you’re watching was one such example.

“Terrible thing, that is,” Imani muttered. “How could they do that to a child? That little monster doesn’t even have arms! I hope he’s okay…”

“They killed six kids, Imani,” you retorted bitterly. “The moment they decided to take another life was the moment they should have anticipated this would happen.” But the words didn’t sound right on your lips, and you felt a churning pressure in your stomach.

“You don’t really think that, do you…?”

“I’m going now,” you said, ignoring the sour taste in your mouth. You gave her a small wave that she returned half-heartedly, and then closed the door behind you.

While it was true that they killed those children—that _you_ could have been one of those children if circumstances were different—it wasn’t right that these grown-ass adults were beating up on monster children. Maybe the first year or so, it would have been justified, maybe. But six years have passed, and nothing has changed. The children that the King killed are still dead, and that other human—Frisk was their name—was still in the custody of the Queen. Beating up on creatures that couldn’t even defend themselves wasn’t going to change anything.

But you tried not to care. They still were abnormal and creepy looking and strange, and you wanted nothing to do with them.

All you wanted to do was live your life in silence.

* * *

The moment you exited the gates of your apartment complex, all of the breath rushed out of your lungs in one fell swoop, and with it, any amount of confidence you had. You were suddenly reminded that you and your roommates weren’t the only humans in existence. Right in front of you, people were walking up and down in groups. Cars were blaring, trucks were humming, all full of people.

People, people, people…

You took one shaky step and then another, but with each step you took forward, it felt as if another weight was added to the ankles of your legs. Your stomach felt too big for your body; your heart was too heavy for your chest. You lightly gasped for air, feeling as if you were breathing in a paper bag. It felt like you were suffocating, and you couldn’t stand it. But somehow, you made it to the bus stop. Somehow, you were standing on line. Somehow, you were getting on the bus. You took a deep breath. Kept your eyes on the floor.

But then someone’s arm brushed against yours and you flinched.

All of a sudden, the anxiety that had melted away returned back with a vengeance, and you felt your throat close up. You held the steel pole tighter, concentrating on the pain that radiated up your arm the harder you dug your fingers into your hands. You tried to block out the noise of chatter, the frequent laughs, the flirting tilts, the hollow sounds of music, the sickening smell of perfume and cologne, the nauseating smell of pancakes and runny eggs—

Oh god, you were going to throw up.

You shakily moved your free hand to the red button just adjacent to you, completely ignoring the person sitting in front of you, when you felt your pocket vibrate. Ignoring it, you continued to inch your finger closer and closer, but the phone wouldn’t stop vibrating. Whatever person that got the wrong number didn’t get the hint that you weren’t the one they were looking for.

Momentarily putting off the decision to get off at the next stop, you pulled out your phone. Still vibrating, you just stared at the screen. An alarm that you didn’t remember setting was staring you in the face, with one word as its title.

 _Hey_.

Figuring that it was probably a premeditated prank from Imani, you sighed and disabled it, placing the phone back in your pocket.

But then the vibrations started again.

This time, you looked a bit irritated as you stared at the screen again.

 _You’re probably panicking right now, aren’t you_?

That doused any irritation that you may have had towards her. Because the only one who would do this, who would know you so well, what you were doing when you were doing it and how you were doing it—and calculated the time that it would take for you to react—it had to be Anita. She put her energy into all the wrong things, nothing that could really earn her the degree that she deserves, and you happened to be one of those things. Just by telling her when you got panicked and how long it took you to get to school, she knew everything that you’d do, and had a roundabout solution for almost any trouble you had.

You disabled the alarm again, feeling your anxiety lessen considerably. You felt tempted to disable all of the ones she probably set up, but it was alleviating. So, so alleviating and fun and so like Anita to do something so kind like this in such a low-key way. You didn’t want to ruin her efforts.

So for the rest of the bus ride, you waited for the next alarm to sound. She sent something every three to five minutes, keeping your emotions in check with little phrases like “ _Take a deep breath_ ,” “ _Just a bit longer_ ,” “ _You can make it_ ,” and somehow you managed to calm down and relax.

By the time you were off the bus, you were in a much better mood, holding your binder for your upcoming class in one hand, staring at your phone with the other, so much so that you didn’t even notice that someone was also distracted. You both collided head-on with each other, and your binder fell on the concrete, your papers scattering a canvas all around you. Panic rose back in you like a rekindled flame, and not meeting the gaze of the other person, you mutely bent down and quickly picked up your essays, willing your hands not to shake so much. The person who bumped into you noticed that and quickly apologized.

“I-I’m s-so sorry! Here, let m-me help you w-with that.”

You felt your hands trembling even more when you heard their desperate efforts to pick up as much as they could to help you out, and god, you could feel the bile rising up your throat. You wished they had just left you alone, don’t people usually mind their business when this happens—

“Y-you like Shion’s King t-too?!”

Taking in a sharp breath, you lifted your gaze to the chubby fingers that held two-thirds of your papers along with your phone. The alarm that Anita set up hadn’t gone off yet, leaving your phone’s screensaver vulnerable to prying eyes. You went to grab your phone, but then you saw that this person was wearing a bracelet. And if it were any bracelet, you wouldn’t have cared, girls wear bracelets all the time, but no, this was a special bracelet. Almost like a medical band, it was a thin strip of steel with a rosy red colored band in the middle. It had a small meter in the center, none of which was filled in.

Slowly, you raised your eyes to the person staring at you with contained excitement.

Aw hell.

She wasn’t even human.

She was a damn _monster_.

This lizard—dinosaur, whatever—monster was staring at you in absolute adoration. Her eyes twinkled so brightly, but they dimmed a bit when she saw that you weren’t saying anything. And as soon as her eyes dimmed, she began to stammer out an apology that you could barely make sense of. She gave you back your phone, her hands trembling like yours were, if not worse, but most likely for a different reason. It made you wonder for a moment what she went through to be so scared of humans like that. But considering that some people took sport to attacking monsters—who could only retaliate if someone was actually _watching_ them—you knew it couldn’t be anything good.

At that moment, your phone vibrated again. You read the screen and took in a breath.

 _Don’t run away_.

Taking in another deep breath, you tried to calm down. You could do this, let this monster see that not all humans were bad. Because to tell the truth, as much as you feared monsters—look at the goat ones! They were so incredibly intimidating _and_ they were murderers—you knew that all of them weren’t bad. You tried to deny yourself the truth, tried to believe a lie because it was just so much easier to lump them all in the same category so you wouldn’t feel bad for their treatment, but this monster in front of you was living proof that they weren’t all bad. She…was even kinder than most humans, who would give you a brief apology, if that much. She still had your papers neatly stacked in her trembling hands, just waiting for you to take it.

You were going to go the extra mile for her.

You offered her a small, nervous smile, taking the papers from her. You weren’t used to talking to humans, much less monsters, but for this monster who was so kind to you, you had to at least _try_. You weren’t going to run away like you always did when you had to talk to someone.

Clearing your throat, you flexed your hand, using the pain in your palm as ammunition to speak. If you went back now, you were going to clam up like you always did, and you couldn’t do that. Not for this one.

“I-I do like it,” you replied softly, your voice cracking a bit. “I loved how strong she was, even though she was so young.”

The lizard’s eyes grew wide, realizing that you weren’t going to hurt her, and then that smile returned onto her face.

“I-I! I do too! I l-love her and Ayumi too! I shipped t-them so hard in the beginning! I, uh, got into s-shogi because of her too! And the murderer was e-exactly who I t-thought it was! But the ending was still really moving!” She looked so pleased that she found another anime fan like herself that you couldn’t help but smile a bit wider, a bit more genuine. If you were honest, you really wanted to meet someone who was into anime, too. You always heard so much about the anime conventions, but when you looked it up online and saw all those people…you couldn’t do it. No matter how much you loved anime, you’d die if you went even one meter near that infestation that dared call itself a crowd.

Your phone vibrated again and the monster snapped out of it, apologizing yet again for holding up your time.

“I-I’m Alphys,” she introduced, shyly holding out her hand. “I, uh, really am happy I m-met another anime fan today. I d-don’t see fans very often. It w-would be nice if we met e-each other again…”

You begged to disagree, but you didn’t tell her that. As far as you were concerned, this was a one-time break. You still thought monsters were creepy, and although you knew— _always_ knew, but perhaps it was too hard to ignore now—that not all monsters were evil, you still didn’t want to be near one. You didn’t want to talk to one. You didn’t even want to be associated with one. This was still the worst case scenario you’d ever been through, because you weren’t only talking to someone outside of the comfort of your apartment, you were talking with a _monster_.

But you still gave your name with a small smile.

And you still shook her hand.

And even when she brushed herself off lightly and walked away with a bit of prep in her step, you were still smiling a little.

And even though you decided in your heart that you would never see her again…

…a small part of you hoped you would.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess meeting one nice monster isn’t enough. Now you gotta meet _two_ of them. And he’s just as awkward as you, too. Imani would be so proud right now…

As a rule of thumb, you liked to be the first one in the classroom. When you were the first one, you didn’t have the uncomfortable scenario of people’s eyes drifting towards yours when you opened the door. And it wasn't like it was something that maybe happened or possibly happened; you've seen it all the time, every day. And the worst part was that when it became closer and closer to the time that class was supposed to start, the more eyes would look at you in anticipation.

So when you walked into the door a minute before class was supposed to start, everyone’s eyes peered up at you.

And for a moment, you completely froze. Fresh terror ran through your veins and you were stuck there, unsure of what to do. You couldn’t very well tell these students that you hadn’t talked to the entire semester _hello_ , could you? Even before the first letter could get out of your mouth, you would choke on it and have a panic attack, and then you’d have to go to the hospital and god you hated hospitals so much—

But as soon as they saw that you weren’t the professor, their eyes focused back on their respective groups, allowing an incredible large pressure to lift off of you. You felt so relieved you could have cried, and keeping your head down, navigated to the back of the class. Funny enough, almost all the seats were taken except for five in the right corner.

Of which at the very end a ghost was sitting at.

You had never seen a ghost before this, and somehow, you just knew that this guy was a monster. Two and two came together in your mind, and you realized that this class—the _entire_ class—refused to sit in this corner, opting to even grab the chair-desks that were stacked in the front of the class and from the next class over (if the numbers on the back of the chairs are to be believed) because there was a monster sitting there. Not because the chairs were broken, not because the sewer water from the third floor leaked again and dripped all over the seats, not because someone ate in the back of the classroom and the army of ants came to take the goods, but because there was a _monster_ sitting there. And you knew the rumors that all monsters were criminals, that they all collaborated together to kill those children, that they were brutes and untamable beasts who would kill you if the restriction laws weren’t in place, but you also knew that those rumors were inflated. They were written by people who hated that there was something different from them and wanted to isolate them, to vilify them. And it was working.

But this ghost, this somber, almost crying ghost, he wasn’t like those other monsters, at least, not the ones you saw on television. It was almost as if he resigned himself to this treatment, and he was curling in on himself in a corner, staring idly at his phone, waiting for something to happen. Perhaps for the professor to come in, or perhaps for the class to end. He reminded you of yourself, and for a reason you couldn’t explain—especially as you disliked monsters so very much—your heart went out to him.

He didn’t even look intimidating. He wasn’t like some of the crazier monsters out there, like that loud skeleton looking one that you saw on television a few days ago, neither was he creepy-looking like that strange dog monster that was put on an unfair trial because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was—a ghost. Like Casper the Friendly Ghost. He even kind of looked like him, except he was slightly more…cuter. He was quiet, too. And he really didn’t want to bring attention to himself at all…

You already felt yourself caving in a bit, and sitting two seats away from him—he still could be a mass murderer for all you know, he could be faking it—you gave him a small, curt smile. It was the best you could do, considering the circumstances. While you felt bad for him, you weren’t going to be the one to initiate conversation. You weren’t going to embarrass yourself like that, and you didn’t feel a need to put yourself out on the front-line just to make this guy have the feel-goods. It was true that monsters weren’t all the same, but even so, they weren’t any better than people. They probably still lied and cheated and hated and loved, and perhaps after people get it through their head that they weren’t so different, they would actually accept them.

…

Yeah, who were you kidding? It’s been six years. If something radical would have happened, it probably would have happened already. Monsters were probably going to have to work hard for decades just _getting_ their ‘unalienable’ rights. Hah. Humans who were different in skin color, religion, sex, all of the things that were actually _within_ their species, they had to fight for several decades, sometimes even centuries, to get the same basic rights as their majority counterparts. But these monsters weren’t even the same species. They were, well, monsters, completely different in every way to humans. If anything, they may never get the rights they deserve.

That made your heart go out to them just a bit more.

…Damn it, Imani.

You turned back to the ghost, opening your mouth to say something to him, when the professor came in. And thank god, too, because you were probably going to do something you were going to regret for the rest of the semester. You might have started the conversation just fine, but then sustaining it would have been a disaster. Besides, you weren’t going to talk to monsters. You _told_ yourself that. Just because there were a few good (and pitiful) apples here and there didn’t mean that it was worth changing your beliefs for. They weren’t any better than anyone else—they’d react to you the same way that a human would. So you didn’t need to talk to him.

…was what you thought. Until you found yourself in the uncomfortable scenario of working with him. You totally forgot that it was music workshop day. No wonder everyone was steering far away from him. They didn’t want him in their group.

…now you felt even worse for him.

“Um…” You froze. Was he talking to you? He had to be, right? Geez, even his voice sounded cute.

Wait, you had to say something, right? God, you were so not used to this. You really didn’t want to talk either. At least you weren’t panicking like earlier. You supposed it was because this ghost was just as uncomfortable as you were. And misery loves company and all that, right?

Regardless. You couldn’t just leave this guy hanging.

Turning to him, you gave him another small smile.

“Yes?”

“Oh…I didn’t think you’d talk to me…” Great, now he made you feel even _worse_. You never seen him in this music class. Was he always there? You always sat in the back; you would have noticed if there was a monster in the class. Perhaps he just transferred today? Because of the rather flexible rules your university had, depending on what class it was, new students were always welcome. Either way, you couldn’t just ignore this guy who looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

(And if you were honest with yourself, seeing someone so uncomfortable made you more comfortable. You didn’t think that would ever be possible, considering that the only place you felt comfortable at was your apartment, but—there was something about this ghost. He gave you courage that no one else did. He made you feel like it was _alright_ to be nervous.)

“We’re classmates, aren’t we? Of course I’d talk to you. I haven’t seen you before—were you always in this class?”

The ghost shook his head slightly. “I just transferred today…”

Your smile increased. “Then welcome, I guess. You know what music workshop is?”

He nodded. “I…already know how to make music. But…monsters aren’t allowed to become musicians without an associate’s degree…so…I’m here.”

You thought that was total bullcrap, but hell if you were going to voice that in a class that you never spoken in before this moment. You just nodded curtly, which he took to mean that he said something offensive. You could tell by the way he made himself smaller, the way he kept his eyes on the desk with his beat up old Dell laptop. You had the kneejerk to apologize, but you knew that the moment you apologized, you would psyche yourself into believing that you did something genuinely wrong, and _then_ the panic would hit you. And you couldn’t just text up your roommates—not now. They won’t answer you.

Instead, you said, “That sounds awful. Well, if that’s the case, maybe we could trade some ideas. We can wow their socks off.”

Wow their socks. Haha. That sounds so stupid. Your face scrunches up a bit, but the ghost doesn’t notice. He’s too busy typing on the computer—you don’t see fingers, but you can still see the keys being pressed down—until he turns back to you.

“Actually…I already…kinda…did it. Sorry…”

Well then. You just embarrassed yourself _and_ talked to him for no reason. But now you were curious. Did he do it before class? Was that was he was doing on his phone? You noticed that he seemed to always wear headphones…maybe he was constantly working on new songs. A momentary thought to inch over and look at what he did crossed your mind, but you immediately wrote it off. Talking to a (apparently very shy) monster was one thing, but to get in his space was another. And you…you weren’t good when people got too close. You’d start itching, and then when you started, you wouldn’t stop until you bled.

But this ghost saved you the aggravation of making a decision.

“Would you…like to listen to it?”

You nodded, and he slowly pushed his computer in your direction. You fished for your earplugs that you always carried in your back pocket and put them in. He pressed play, and a very dreary, depressing, and almost psychedelic melody played into your ears.

You loved it.

“This…this is _really_ good,” you commented with the first genuine smile since you entered into the classroom, and somehow, he noticed. His face lit up, and a cute little blush flashed across his cheeks. His gaze lowered, but his mouth curved up into a humble smile.

“I have more…if you’re interested.”

And you were. So while everyone else was working on their projects feverishly, you were in the back of the classroom with this ghost, listening to depressing song after song, and you were loving it the entire time. When it came to music, you were passionate about it. You loved it all: rock, classical, rap, hip-hop, country, metal, dubstep, electronica…on your phone, you had over a thousand songs of every possible genre. If it weren’t for the fact that you weren’t really the best at creating music yourself, you would have majored in music. But this was nice. Being able to appreciate original music first-hand like this was really nice.

While you were listening to the twelfth song on his playlist, the professor traipsed over.

“I see you haven’t done anything,” he said, displeasure written all over his face. Addressing you, he continued, “I expected more from you. You almost always are the first one to hand in your work.”

You fought off the sudden panic that rose in your throat. If there was anything that you hated, it was disappointing people. It was one of the main reasons why you just couldn’t have friends, why you didn’t try to make any—you were afraid of disappointing them. You were afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, afraid of making some bad joke that they would shun you for…the list went on and on. And it wasn’t like your record with your past friendships was any good.

But then you realized something. This professor wasn’t upset that you weren’t working at all…in fact…

“B-but sir, we already finished,” you said, speaking up for the ghost who shrunk in on himself again. You wanted to cringe at your nervous stutter, but you had bigger fish to fry. “Here, look at this.”

And without asking the ghost, you went back to the very first song he showed you and pulled up the music sheet that accompanied the sound track. Looking at it like this, the ghost really was talented. It was a shame that he couldn’t just make his music—wasting two years just to get an associate’s degree to do what he’s doing now was a waste of time.

“…did you do this?”

You hesitated for a moment before shaking your head.

“It needs to be done again,” the professor finally said after a long period of silence. “It doesn’t fit the theme of the class at all, not to mention that it looks like some areas of this song were taken from outside sources.”

You balked, because you knew for sure that this was original. Not only was this an original piece of music—you hadn’t heard _anything_ like what this ghost made—but there was no explicit theme of this class. It was just “Introduction to Musical Composition,” and the first task of the week was using the given software to create a thirty second melody. Nowhere during the duration of the class was there supposed to be a fixed theme, because he wanted the class to explore what style they liked.

And then it finally clicked. You knew that it was something like this when he said he expected more from you, but you didn’t want to believe it…

And looking at the sadness in the ghost’s face, it didn’t look like he was going to speak up either. You weren’t going to let this go. If there was someone you’d vouch for in any given situation, it would be this monster. He had to have worked tirelessly on these pieces. Just because he didn’t say how hard he worked on it didn’t mean that he _didn’t_ work hard. While he was showing you his music, you saw draft after draft of the same exact song. There was no way you were going to make a song for the both of you just because this professor didn’t like that this monster was talented.

“Sir, b-but I did the second part,” you argued, wincing at your lie a bit. “We both worked really hard on it, and if we redo the work, it won’t be able to be handed in by the end of class. Not to mention that today wasn’t supposed to be a specific theme. You said so in the beginning of class.”

The elderly man’s sharp gaze settled on you, and you shivered in spite of yourself. Never before had he ever looked like that, and somehow you knew it wasn’t because of you. It was because of this monster that you were defending. And you could see it now: this man hated that you were taking the ghost’s side. But to be a bit of a pragmatist, it was true that if you and this ghost were to start from scratch, it really _wouldn’t_ be completed by the end of class.

Wait—why on earth were you even defending this monster?

“I thought that you didn’t do it.”

Well. You already stepped in a pile of crap, might as well wipe it off to completion.

“U-um, well he did the majority of it, but yes, I contributed to it, too. You usually compliment my work—is there something wrong with it this time? W-we can run a fact check on the music if you need proof that it’s not—”

“No, that’s fine,” he interrupted. “It looks fine, you can email it to me.” He took one last withering glance at the ghost, and then he moved onto the next group, who was too busy looking at the latest football game to even notice the old man coming up behind them.

You took a deep sigh. That could have gone better, but for now, that would have to be enough. The good news was that even if you didn’t receive a good grade on this assignment, it was only worth fifteen percent of your grade, and that fifteen percent was divided among fifteen projects. Even though you weren’t good at composing music, you were very well-versed with the logistics of it. You glanced at the ghost, who was staring at you with something akin to wonder, and feeling the guilt, you mumbled an apology. You knew it wasn’t right to lie, but at the same time, you knew that the professor probably wouldn’t have accepted it otherwise. You never really knew this professor to be so…so…well, close-minded, but it was obvious from the moment he walked up to you two. The hostility was thicker than the molasses stored in the back of your cabinet.

…was that how you were to monsters? Was this how you thought of them? Were you like that just this morning? Was that why Imani gave you that look? You really haven’t met a monster face to face before, but whenever you saw one near you, you automatically crossed the street to get away from them. Glared every time you saw them. Ignored them if they had to get on the bus behind you and needed the door open for them. You were…you were…

You were _awful_.

And yes, yes you knew about the fact they killed children; you hated them for that. When officers and reporters questioned how they were able to get out if there was a so-called barrier, well, the King had to tell the truth. Even if he didn’t, they would have found out eventually, and he knew that. That kid Frisk encouraged them to tell the truth too. So you knew that there were really crappy monsters out there. Ones who wouldn’t see the problem with taking lives so as long as they weren’t caught. But…that lizard monster, Alphys, and this ghost that you still don’t know the name of…they were kind. Nervous, a wreck just like you were, and kind. Kinder than anyone you had ever seen before, besides your roommates.

You…you were going to give this monster a chance. You don’t know how you’ll treat the next one, and you don’t know if you’ll like monsters, considering how creepy a lot of them looked. But at the very least, you were going to give this one a chance. And maybe…maybe if you met Alphys again, you would give her a chance too.

“Hey, um…what’s your name?”

He blinked owlishly and then realized that you were talking to him again.

“Oh…it’s Napstablook…”

You smiled and extended your hand, an ironic image of what Alphys did to you. After introducing yourself again, you apologized again for lying like that and told him about the professor. You explained how people tended to be, and you hoped that he wouldn’t become discouraged about it. But instead, he thanked you. He had no intentions of saying anything, just like you expected, and it made you break a bit inside. You wondered if you were a monster, if you would be just as shy and insecure as he was. Surrounded by people who looked nothing like you, all with anger and hatred in their eyes for taking up their land and resources…isolated by students and peers alike because you were different…

Yeah. You probably would have been just like Napstablook, if not worse, considering your current circumstance.

He shook your hand and while you couldn’t see his hand, you saw the bracelet on his wrist. It was floating in thin air, but there it was: the Identification Bracelet for Contemporary Aliens.

You felt some sort of pity prickle at your chest.

After all of your classes ended (all of them monster free except that music class), you took the cab home, not really wanting to associate with another crowd of people like you did in the morning. You gave the taxi driver a small tip for putting up with your anti-social behavior, and then walked through the gates of your apartment. The lights of your room were dimmed, but as soon as you inserted your key and walked in, the entire floor lit up.

Imani was the first to greet you, enveloping you in a hug. She looked at you up to down before asking, “How was your day?”

You gave a dry laugh before sitting on the couch in the common room, nudging Anita to move over a bit. She glanced at you for a moment, offering you slightly upturned lips as a greeting, before moving to the other side of the couch, her eyes still concentrated on her newest book—again in a language that you couldn’t understand. Imani plopped right next to you on the other side, before thinking better of it and sitting next to Anita, making her lap Anita’s foot-rest. Enma came on the other side and held your hand like she always did, leaning against your shoulder. You gave her a one-armed hug, one that she silently settled into.

Once the four of you were situated, Imani asked again.

“ _So_? How was your day today?”

Thinking about your day, you could really only laugh.

“…it was interesting. Wherever do I start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I think about it, it’s not really “slow burn,” is it? I mean, Reader met two monsters in one day, literally in the span of hours of each other. I guess what I mean by slow burn is: don’t expect Reader to get together with Sans anytime soon. Like, it’s not happening this chapter, or ten chapters from now. But Sans _will_ be coming soon—I’d say about two chapters from now or so.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not even a week has passed since you met Alphys again. And she wants to be your friend…? Somehow, between her overwhelming kindness and your new information on the monsters, between your pity and your kindness, you give in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’ve made it this far, I really must commend you. I know my style of writing is a bit more introspective and expositional than fun and exciting, and every time I read a UT fanfiction I almost want to cringe at the difference between my boring writing and theirs, but…well. It’s the way I am, I suppose. Maybe if I can complete this story, I’ll experiment a bit? I dunno.

The next four days passed without incident.

To be honest, you had a rather monotonous life. You woke up, greeted your roommates, ate at the table together, went to college, came back home, rinsed, and repeated. You didn’t have any friends to text, and both of your parents passed away. Complications arose with your extended family, so much so that none of them really wanted to take you in. Not that it mattered much, anyhow. You were just out of touch with your extended family as you were with society. Only seeing them twice in the twenty years you’ve been living, you’d be honest in confessing that it would be very awkward living conditions if you chose to stay with them. This was fine.

It was a Saturday morning, and Imani was sitting in front of the television set again, her fingers slowly threading through Enma’s hair. Next to her, Anita was reading yet another book—you shouldn’t have been surprised at how fast she could read, but she just finished a textbook. Two, actually. At this time, she was on her third one for the week. Something about linear algebra…? Hell if you knew.

She flipped the page, and without looking up, she said, “Morning.”

“Hey,” you replied, giving her an open-armed hug. She patted your hand, one that on anyone else would have seemed mocking, but with her was a gesture of affection. “Have you eaten yet?”

She flipped another page. “…no, not yet.”

You released her, your gaze already turning to the kitchen. “I’ll make something now, then. Anything you have in mind?”

“You can make anything you want. Make what you always do.”

Grimacing, you asked her, “Aren’t you tired of egg sandwiches?”

“Not really…” Closing the book, she placed her undivided attention on you. “You should know this by now, but I’m not really picky. So as long as I’m actually eating, I really don’t care what you feed me.” She paused for a moment before adding, “And the fact that you feed us for free is always nice. Not like any of us are actually working.”

Or _able_ to work, but she conveniently left that out.

“Well…you’re getting an online degree, and you homeschool Enma.”

“If we’re talking about homeschooling, Phoebe is too,” Imani pipped up, reaching up to give you a hug. After you hugged her, she gave a bright smile and then turned back to the television. On the weekends, Imani was particularly lazy. But she didn’t seem to be interested in whatever show she was watching and changed the channel, but that wasn’t interesting, either. Not finding anything of interest, she flipped the channel with an almost bored expression on her face, and when she settled on the newscast, you saw more monsters. Unlike just the day before, you had very mixed feelings about this new incident that came up. The issue of self-defense was once again at the forefront, as the plaintiff—a middle aged older man with a smoker’s voice—was accusing this monster of violating his rights for what seemed like the enth time. Imani’s eyes narrowed, obviously displeased with the current events, but when she saw that you were watching it too, she didn’t change the channel.

There was always some sort of drama going on with the monsters. Many times, whenever an interspecies scuffle occurred, it was almost always escalated. Despite trials being labeled as the ‘worst-case scenario,’ there were more trials now than ever in America. Arbitration was almost never used because the human and the monster could never come to an agreement on the damages—that was, if the human was even honest about the whole thing in the first place—and even when the case was dropped, within months it was resurrected, with the monsters having to pay a fine, more often than not.

Imprisonment seemed to be heavily dissuaded because the monsters were locked under the mountain for so long, and as cruel and unusual punishments were forbidden according the constitution, well, that would be a cruel punishment for them. Even if they weren’t human. So as long as they were considered a citizen, alien or not, they had the basic laws of the constitution on their side, for what it was worth. But what made it tricky was that politicians and attorneys alike knew how to skewer the laws to their advantage. Even if you knew the basic rules of a game, if you don’t know how to apply it correctly, it may as well not even be there.

“It’s a money-making process,” Anita suddenly commented, her nose scrunched up as she opened up her book again. She fanned through the pages until she found what she was looking for. Ignoring the news, she continued. “It’s all about politics, really. The state and federal governments have officially signed separate contracts with the monsters that granted them limited citizenship as Americans. As the damage was all on the humans’ side, directly taking away what little they had would be barbaric, and would make America look tyrannical to international nations. But at the same time, the monsters have what humans desperately want and can profit off of, which is their gold. But gold is still expensive, and the monsters have it by the gallons, so casual mineral to money trade won’t work. Doing so would probably tank the economy, because while they would have an overabundance of gold, they wouldn’t have an external nation to trade it to that could use that much.”

You took a sharp intake of breath as the information slowly sunk in. You thought about the new laws the state governments made, dictating the ways in which a monster could use their magic if they felt threatened. You thought about the bracelet system administered by the federal government, an automatic magic tracking device that constantly monitored the levels—and types, apparently, and you didn’t even know there _were_ types until Phoebe told you two days ago—of every single monster, and that if the accepted levels were surpassed without a ‘third-party’ watching it, they had the right to be detained by the authorities at any time…

It was a minefield ready to explode.

But maybe you were wrong. Maybe you were just reading this all wrong. “…so…they’re making those new laws on purpose so that they can have the money and the gold…?”

She hummed, threading a highlighter between her index and middle finger, pausing to mark up a page. “Sounds about right. The strict laws that the government gave them are pretty trigger-happy. When the laws are inevitably broken, the trials that the monsters have to go to almost always end up going to the Supreme Court, who declares the monsters guilty, except for that one case with the armless kid. And when they _are_ declared guilty, they have to pay a small amount of gold, which the Supreme Court gets a cut of, which trickles down to the smaller courts and presenting attorney. Then, they’re able to transfer their new gold into mineral to money trading. Sick, huh?”

Yeah. It was sick. It was so sick that you didn’t think you could sit around and watch the news any longer. Standing up, you muttered something about cooking under your breath as you began to feverishly scratch your arm, not really noticing the sympathetic and apologetic look Anita shot at you before you darted out of the common room. You heard murmurs from where you just came from, but you don’t think you had the courage to listen in. You can’t believe how naïve you have been all this time. When you heard all of the stuff about the monsters, you just assumed that they were in the wrong. If you were honest, yes, your bias definitely got in the way. But even you have to admit that the way they were treated was downright awful. Did the monsters know about this? Why don’t they try to negotiate something?

Then you thought about Alphys, Napstablook, the reaction of your classmates to Napstablook, the passive-aggressive racially charged people in the next city over, the fake smiles of the politicians as they shook the hands of the King, Queen, and the very loud ‘mascot,’ the flinches when the reporters interviewed them, and your prejudice attitude you held towards them just not even a week ago…

They knew. They had to have known. And maybe they had something in mind for the future, but for now, they were dealing with it with patience.

Trying to push the heaviness off of your mind, you focused on cooking. You opened the fridge, searching for the eggs but coming up empty-handed. In fact, the entire fridge was as barren as your room.

Great. Now you had a reason to get a bit of fresh air. You _really_ didn’t want to go outside, but you needed to take your mind off of this. Dwelling on it would only cause you to panic. You’d regret ever being cruel to them in the first place—and to you, your indifference was practically a ‘go-getter’ for all those close-minded bastards that knew of their treatment and still went with it anyways—and then you’d realize what a terrible person you were and you’d hate yourself until you couldn’t take it anymore and bashed your head against the wall—

Yeah. A distraction sounded nice.

When you went back into the common room, the channel was changed, but you were already passing them to get your coat.

“We’re out of supplies, so I’m going shopping. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Imani looked like she wanted to say something, but she held it back, instead jerking her head into a nod. Enma, on the other hand, immediately rose from the couch to grab your hand. She looked so worried, and you felt bad that you had a six year old kid be so concerned about you, someone who was more than three times her age. You must have looked so shaken up when you left them. Holding her hand, you lowered yourself to her level, rubbing her cheeks and tenderly kissing her forehead. If there was anyone you didn’t want to make upset, it was her. Enma was like…she was like the little sister you never had.

“Don’t worry about me, Enma. I’m just going out to get some food since we don’t have any. I’ll be back soon, alright?”

“…can I come with you?”

You gave her another kiss, not giving her a definite answer.

“You can wait for me, can’t you? I promise I’ll be careful.”

That pacified her only slightly, but she knew pushing the issue wouldn’t solve anything. So she nodded, releasing your hand very reluctantly.

You gave her one last smile, waving your hand and watching her wave it back at you. After you were sure she would be fine with you leaving, you closed the door with a sigh, bracing yourself for the worst.

* * *

You felt a new wave of nausea slap you in the face as soon as you left the apartment gates. Yeah, that was definitely a distraction.

If you were completely honest with yourself, you don’t know when this anthropophobia started, if you could even call it that. It wasn’t like you were afraid of your roommates…well, they were different. Completely different. And you couldn’t lie to yourself and say that they were like everyone else, because they weren’t. They were just as dysfunctional as you were, and that was part of the reason why you could get along with them so well. But everyone else scared you. Even the children, funny enough. Actually, _especially_ the children. There was something about their sweet, innocent smiles that haunted you from somewhere. Something about their trust—

It didn’t matter.

Almost robotically, you kept your head down as you marched down the sidewalk, just adjacent to your apartment. The gates rushed to catch up with you as you increased your pace, doing your best to pointedly ignore the voices of the people right behind you. But try as you may, you still eavesdropped into their conversation. For a brief moment, you wished you could talk about stupid things like the latest movies and the crappiest date with your— _hah_ —boyfriend, but after a fleeting moment, you wrote it off. Friendship was complicated. They wanted you to give and give, but when it came time for you to take, they would leave you for the wolves. And…you really didn’t want that. You didn’t have much to give either, and the little that you did had to offer was…it wasn’t good. Just like you.

But thoughts like that only happened once in a while. Once in a while, you dreamed of the life you _could’ve_ had. Under some other circumstances, you could have had a close buddy like you see in anime. Like Momoko and Hinagiku in _Wedding Peach_ , or like Anita and Hisa in _Read or Die_. Something that no one else could have touched even if their life depended on it. In the end, they were only thoughts, and after a moment or two, you woke up and smelled the coffee and realized: that wasn’t happening anytime soon. Not in this world, or the next.

Sighing, you finally looked up, just in time to see a mini-convenience store. You felt so relieved, because it meant that you were that much closer to being over and done with this shopping spree. Actually, a shopping spree wasn’t even necessary. You may have been a woman, but just because you were a woman didn’t mean you needed to shop like one. You just needed to get your perishables, pay, and get out.

Summoning up all your energy, you grabbed a cart from the very left of the entrance, immediately scanning the isles until you found what you were looking for. In under ten minutes, your cart was filled with eggs, juice, bread, and other essentials that you needed. And after that was done, you got a little something for each of your roommates. Imani practically lived on ice cream, Anita tended to be a heavy drinker at night, Enma loved cookies, and Phoebe liked salty snacks. After getting them one item each, you headed for the cash register. You didn’t respond to him when he greeted you, which he took offense at, but being as your head was down, you didn’t see his reaction. Of course, you didn’t have to see it. He didn’t help you bag the groceries at all. But if it was between that and actually talking to him, you would rather bag your own groceries any day.

Finally dragging your tired caucus out of the store, you trudged back the way you came. Almost halfway home, you heard someone call out your name.

…

Well, your name wasn’t the most popular of names, but it wasn’t particularly unique either. So you didn’t do anything more than flinch for a moment before walking again without thinking twice. Because there was no way that someone was calling you. It had to be someone else in this area. Who would possibly talk to you when you didn’t talk to anyone?

But sure enough, someone was calling your name. It was hesitant at first, but it grew slightly more confident. Well, as confident as a wavering voice could get. As the voice became suspiciously louder the closer it came, you finally turned around.

Oh.

It was Alphys, the otaku monster that you kind of liked. The compassionate one.

She asked if she got your name right, and you nodded, still very much taken aback that you two would meet again. Cause, well, think of the odds of that. In a city of more than ten thousand people, on one of the busiest streets, less than a week from when you two first met, at a completely different location than the first time, you two meet again. Either she lived really close by and had a similar schedule to yours, she was stalking you (psh, like that would happen), or…well. You didn’t know. Either way, it was downright strange.

“I-it’s really n-nice to see you again,” she greeted with a shy smile and wave. “D-did I bother you?”

Yes.

“No,” you answered with a small smile. Brutal honesty wasn’t going to help either of you. Because really, what did she think? You’re lugging five grocery bags in each hand, looking tired and anti-social as hell, and then she just pops up and—damn it. None of that is her fault. She just called out to you, hoping to find some nice human in this high-paced city, and you happened to fit the bill. Not to mention that you two had similar interests.

“How are you?”

“O-oh!” She seemed surprised that you’d ask that. Was that something that you usually don’t ask people? You see people doing it often enough. When you were younger, you used to reciprocate in like kind, telling them all about how you were and hoped they’d do the same…you’ve long since realized that “how are you” is nothing more than a greeting. They don’t actually expect you to tell them your life story. You wondered if Alphys was going to do the same thing you were.

“I’m k-kind of tired. You see, I j-just came from work! I-it was r-really difficult, b-but I’d rather not talk a-about that right now. I-if I didn’t like it so much, I probably w-would have quit this d-dumb job years ago. B-but anyways! How are you?”

Well then. Wasn’t this a blast from the past. You couldn’t even feel impatient because you used to do that too. You, and your terribly socially awkward self. When you used to talk to people and give it a concerted effort. She obviously wasn’t used to people asking her how she was—you wondered if anyone ever greeted her outside of work. Did she have friends? Family? Was she alone in this city, just like you were? And worse, a monster?

“I’m a bit tired myself,” you replied, gesturing to the bags. She seemed to immediately notice and, for what seemed like the fifth time since you met, she stuttered out an apology, one that you deflected. There was no reason to apologize if you didn’t do something wrong.

“L-let me!” And then she approached you quickly, grabbing all of the bags from one of your hands before you could even have a chance to react. And then she gave you another sweet smile as she nervously explained herself, her eyes lowering every so often.

“I-it’s the least I c-can do for h-holding you up.”

And by god, you’ve never met a person _nearly_ as nice as this monster.

She seemed to become increasingly more anxious the more you stood there, until she started to apologize, perhaps thinking that you were angry that she touched your bags or something stupid like that, when you gave her the most appreciative smile you could muster. You were getting comfortable with her (somehow? It’s not like she’s not likable, though), and while you were able to talk to her easily enough, you were afraid that your words might have given her the wrong impression. You hoped that your smile could convey how you felt.

It did, more or less.

You walked home together, talking about anime, which seemed to be your favorite topic. It was nice to be with your roommates, definitely, but none of them liked anime, not really. Except for Phoebe, and she liked the raunchier ones. The ones that you wouldn’t watch with children present. Yeah. _Those_. And while that was something that you dabbled with occasionally, your tastes weren’t limited to that like hers were. You liked all genres.

Maybe that’s why talking to Alphys was so nice?

You two were comparing Hazuki and Hatsumi’s incestuous relationship with Hazuki and Lilith’s unrequited relationship when you reached your apartment gates. She was in the middle of her sentence, saying something about why their relationship in particular was amazing and relatable, and then she just stopped. She stared at your apartment building with wide eyes, and then she stared back at you. Almost as she was in a daze, she came back to herself and fidgeted.

“U-um…I’m s-sorry I g-got carried away…”

You shook your head.

“It’s fine, it was fun.”

She looked so happy that you enjoyed yourself that what she said next didn’t even phase you at first.

“Uh, then, w-would it b-be a-alright if I could h-have your number?”

“N—” You stopped.

…

You couldn’t find it in you to tell her no.

When you thought of the way that the monsters were treated by other humans, when you thought of how she treated you, how she was so kind and so compassionate, how she would always be the first one to apologize—

(How she reminded you so much of yourself, had you been a kinder person—)

You couldn’t find it in yourself to say no. Because if you chose to alienate yourself from her, after everything she’s done for you in a mere two days, then you would be just like everyone else that you hate. Cold, unfeeling, heartless, ungrateful. So you said yes.

And even when she asked to be your friend, you didn’t have the heart to decline the offer.

So when your phone chimed for the first time in forever at the breakfast table and everyone stared at you, all you could really do was shrug.

“I guess I kind of made a friend?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You find out more about Alphys…and you meet a maniac. Excuse me, you run into Undyne.

Imani squealed, jumped up from the table, and wrapped you in the tightest hug you’ve ever received.

“I thought you didn’t want friends?!”

And suddenly giving your number out to an almost total stranger didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. You became frazzled, and you pushed her away, stuttering, “I—I don’t! I don’t like having friends, you know that. And I don’t consider her a friend. She considers me a friend, though. At least, I think she does.”

Mid-bite of her egg sandwich, Anita stopped and stared.

“So you just gave your number to a total stranger?”

Well, it wasn’t like you knew where she lived and you only met her four days ago. “…I guess?”

“And she’s a monster?”

She sure didn’t look human. “…well…”

Anita placed her arm on the table, propping her right cheek on her fist as she stared at you, her lips slowly curving into a smile. She looked so incredibly amused when she said, “Then that can’t be right. I’ve known you for ten years, and in all of the years I’ve known you, you’ve never given out your number to anyone but us. And we don’t count because we always knew your number. So really, you’ve never given your number out to anyone. Like it or lump it, you trust this person.”

“I—”

“I didn’t say that you trust them with your life. I also didn’t say that you trust them enough for them to meet us.” Her smile became a bit sharper. “For you to trust someone enough for them to meet us, you’d have to trust them with your life. And they would have to trust their life with you. So don’t get me wrong. But what I’m saying is: you have a minimum amount of trust in this person, and you genuinely want to be their friend. Don’t try to deny your feelings. If we find that this person isn’t trustworthy, you should know by now that we’ll have your back.”

She was about to say something else, but then your phone chimed again. Everyone at the table watched you as you inched forward and grabbed it. You turned it on and lo and behold, it sure enough was Alphys (did you really need confirmation it was?) who invited you to come over her house over the weekend. If you wanted to, she said. No pressure. But if you knew anything about Alphys, it must have taken a lot of courage to ask you.

“What did they say?”

“…she wants me to come over for the weekend.”

Excited, Imani inched forward to take a look. Next to her, Enma also inched forward, if only because she wanted to see who you were talking to. “Well? Are you going to go?”

…it’s not like you had a choice, did you? Well, you did have a choice, but you didn’t really want to hurt her feelings. Not really. Not if you could help it. So you told them that you were. And for the first time in forever, it was so noisy that next door, the elderly couple had to ask you to take it down a couple of notches, and you had to profusely apologize for all the commotion. Obliviously, Imani kept chattering in your ears how you’d “love it, because having friends is the best thing in the world” and “when I had friends, I enjoyed every second of it until I had to move away.” You get that she was happy for you, but you also wish you hadn’t said anything. Or if you put your phone on vibrate, at least they would have found out eventually.

Well. Maybe it was better this way.

She urged you outside of the house, grabbing a few of your favorite manga series (you _really_ wish she wouldn’t just touch them willy-nilly like that) and practically packed your bag for you. Even when explaining that you could come over at any time over the weekend, she insisted that “no, no, no, you’re doing it all wrong! If she wants you to come over for the weekend, that means she wants you to _stay_ for the weekend!” Which wasn’t what Alphys said at _all_ , but heaven knows that when Imani gets excited about something, she won’t stop until it’s done. So you gave into your fate, frowned at Anita’s lack of interest in helping (stop Imani) you out, since she was the one who caused this mess, and waited until Imani worked herself into a pretty little frenzy getting everything you need because according to her, it had to be _perfect_.

While you were sitting on the couch in the common room, Enma quietly came up to you and tugged on your sleeve. You bent down, keeping yourself at her eye level.

She seemed hesitant, but when you coaxed her enough that she was able to stop playing with her jacket (which was cute, especially since she loved your jackets the best for some reason), she finally asked, “Are you going to bring back pictures?”

Pictures? Oh, that’s right.

“Yeah, I’ll bring back some, if she’ll let me take some, alright?”

She looked so relieved that you had to smile a bit, despite the stress of being yet again thrust into a situation you weren’t used to. “Enma, you know you can ask anything of me, right?”

And even though she made a small noise of agreement with a shy smile, you knew that she still had her reservations about asking you things. But you were willing to do anything for her, so as long as she was happy. One day, you hoped she would see that.

* * *

Even though you were already out of the apartment, you texted her, asking her if you could come today. It took her a long, long time, but she finally responded with a positive answer, which you had to breathe a sigh of relief about. Because let’s say that today wasn’t a good day. Then you’d have to go back to your apartment and explain to Imani that no, you told her that today _wasn’t_ a good day after all and now look what happened. Then it would cause a chain effect of her being disappointed, then Enma being disappointed, then Anita—well, she wouldn’t be disappointed, but she probably would be solemn—which would eventually make its way to you. And when you felt disappointed, you’d start to doubt everything. Like if Alphys really wanted you to be friends, despite her being the one to ask you. Like if Alphys really liked you—which would make sense if she didn’t, because she didn’t know you. She wanted to be friends because you smiled at her a few times and expressed an interest in anime. That’s not really a reason to befriend someone _or_ like someone.

But, well, it worked out, and she gave you a series of directions from your house to hers. You were surprised to find out that she didn’t live too far from you, just twenty minutes on foot. And because you knew all of the backstreets that people usually didn’t take, you didn’t have to worry too much about running into someone. It was only the main streets that were the worst, and unfortunately, you couldn’t take a back street to the convenience store or to a bus stop. But from house to house, it was pretty easy. You never needed to use the backstreets, because you never went to anyone’s house, but you knew them like the back of your hand.

Twenty minutes found you in front of a McMansion, clearly out of place from the rest of the modest houses and apartments, including your own. Still, you had walked all the way here, you couldn’t just turn back now. So you went up to her house and knocked on the bodacious door. It was early in the morning and…wait a second. It was now almost mid-day, because it took you that long to go grocery shopping and cook. You just realized something.

Didn’t Alphys say that she just came from work?

…

What the hell were you doing, knocking at her door when she just came from work?

Damn it, you knew this wasn’t a good idea. Oh god, now what were you going to do? You were so selfish, and you asserted yourself where you didn’t need to be. How would you like it if someone asked to come over when you just finished working? She must be so exhausted right now, and you were going to make her entertain you? What a disgusting human being you were. You should just leave right—

You heard the door open, and you startled.

Alphys was in a large dress with yellow spots and stripes, one that you thought was of particularly bad taste, but one that seemed to suit her, somehow. Not to say that she had bad taste, it was just something that kind of fitted her, in a sort of sunflower type of way. But that wasn’t the point. She had a pack of chocolate pocky in one hand, the other being used to push open the door, and she looked absolutely delighted.

Maybe this was a good idea after all…?

“I’m s-so glad you came,” she greeted with a shy smile. She moved over slightly to let you through, and you hesitantly obliged, mainly because she started to look unsure of herself the longer you stood there. Which you stood there because you were _also_ unsure of yourself. It was true that you were worried that you’d inconvenience her, but…it’s been years since you had a friend, and much more time since you went to someone’s house so spontaneously like this. When you first got the text, you were pretty much swept with the peer pressure that your roommates gave you to give it a try. (And yes, you’d lump Anita in with that peer pressure because she sure as hell didn’t stop Imani.) But now that you thought everything through, you were starting to regret this whole thing…

It was too late for regrets, though. You were here already, standing in front of an almost total stranger’s house, under the guise of friendship. You might as well go in.

“Thanks for letting me come on such short notice,” you said. “I brought my clothes over…is it alright if I stayed tonight? We can talk about anime and stuff.”

The moment that you said the word “anime,” you might as well have told her that she won a million bucks. Her eyes became brighter, and she jumped up and down in excitement, clapping her hands like a child. Somehow, it was rather endearing. At the very least, it made you feel better that you decided to stick around after all. Maybe Imani’s advice was actually even useful for once…

“Y-yes! Of course! And I h-have a few series that we could w-watch too! L-like that one with the guy who sends letters t-to people! Or Mew Mew Kissy Cutie! Do you like Mew Mew Kissy Cutie?”

You pulled up a chair in the living room and sat down. You expected that Alphys would have sat next to you on the couch or maybe in the emerald love chair she had buried in the corner, next to her books, but she didn’t. On the floor, Alphys quickly gathered all of the manga that was strewn on the floor and placed it in a cardboard box that was adjacent to her television. She then stretched over and grabbed three DVDs that looked like they were from the early 2000s.

You weren’t sure whether to help her or not. Actually, you weren’t sure what to do at _all_ here. Gosh, you felt so out of place. Well, it wasn’t like you were worried that you’d look stupid—from the little you knew of Alphys, she doesn’t seem to be that type of person. Monster. Damn it, you actually forgot she was a monster. But either way, that wasn’t important. Should you help out or not? Would it be crossing some bridges if you just grabbed her stuff and neatened it like up like she was doing? Or would she think that you were somehow trying to belittle her by helping her out?

You didn’t want to test it, so you just clenched your fists and sat there, staring at your hands.

“It’s okay. I’m not too sure about the second season though…”

She didn’t seem to even notice your plight. “Yes! Yes! The second season w-was terrible, wasn’t it?! T-that’s what I’ve been trying to c-convince the forum about!”

She had the courage to go on a forum? Well then. That was more than what you could ever do. Phoebe convinced you to try it once or twice, said it was a real eye-opener. But the moment you made an account, you had such a nervous breakdown that everyone had to calm you down, and well, lo and behold, a few hours later, your account was mysteriously deleted. Wonder how that could’ve happened.

She told you more about the forum, how they thought that Tokyo Mew Mew was better, and how she just _had_ to disagree, because Kissy Cutie had two seasons, and although the second one was crap, the first season more than made up for the second one. The forum, on the other hand, preferred the second one, because it was more like the original anime series, which was Tokyo Mew Mew, but she didn’t think that series was good either. After all, Ichigo ended up with Aoyama, who was more or less useless the entire show, instead of Shirogane or even Kishu, who were by her side the entire time.

And here you were, listening to all of this information dump like a champ, your mind strangely not wandering off like you thought you would, but even so, you began to feel exhausted. She just kept going on and on and on…

Almost as if she realized she went too far (or that you were too quiet—you seriously weren’t used to this), she stopped her rant and said, “I-I’m sorry. I n-never have anyone to talk to this about, except Undyne…”

You jumped on the new name. “Undyne?”

Her face became a bit red. “O-oh yes, Undyne. She’s my…she’s my g-g-girlfriend?”

She fidgeted nervously, looking very much like she hadn’t said anything. But when you told her that it was nice that she found someone that she liked (because if they were married, you know it must have taken a lot of work to stay together. Monsters were already scorned, but monsters who loved the same sex? That was hate fodder for some right there, even if they didn’t do anything more than exist), she seemed so relieved. So relieved that instead of talking about anime, she began to talk about her lover instead.

You really weren’t sure which one was worse.

* * *

The entire day went by in a flash, with Alphys filling your ears with different anime theories. About Usagi and her heritage, about Mamoru and his possible predetermined fate to be with her, the meaning of fate, if fate applied to Undyne and her (that was its own monologue that took up at least an hour and a half, good lord), and if the Wired and reality was really connected like Lain says it is. That’s when you tried to explain that to some degree, Lain wasn’t wrong—things that happen in the Wired affect reality all the time—but the words wouldn’t come out correctly, because you had to keep stopping yourself from talking to prevent a stutter from slithering out. It wasn’t that you were worried about Alphys making fun of you, it’s just…you hated it. Every time you stuttered, it reminded you about how bad you were when it came to talking to people. How nervous you’d get.

And you weren’t nervous around Alphys, you really weren’t. She was just like you: a socially awkward mess. And while she had some high points, like how she could talk on the internet so freely (you wouldn’t have even known that she was so shy had you not known her personally with how she spoke online), she was still just like you. Still insecure about her opinions, her feelings, and still very much worried about what others thought. It’s just that your habit kicked in

But if there’s one thing that she wasn’t, it was stupid.

Who knew that she was a scientist?

When the two of you were done bingeing the entire Kissy Cutie series (because she wanted you to see how amazing the first season was, even though both Kissy Cutie and Mew Mew had been your favorite childhood anime series), she offered to cook you something. And even though you were so used to cooking, you agreed to it. She wanted to make something small, since apparently Undyne was going to bring something to eat, and while she was in the kitchen, you sat at the dining room table, where you and a stack of research papers met each other eye to eye.

All over the papers were diagrams of hearts that seemed so familiar—

It didn’t matter.

Along with a bunch of other numbers and symbols that made little to no sense to you. But somehow, they just kind of clicked in your head.

“You’re a scientist?”

You heard a crash from the kitchen, and she came storming out. Her hands were full of some sort of mush—was she planning on making cookies? How sweet—and she looked so panicked. And then her eyes met the pile of papers sitting on the table, and she quickly wiped the mush on her hands, not worrying too much about her apron. As soon as she did that, right before your eyes, the mush evaporated into thin air. It was like…nothing you had ever seen before.

You stood up, also becoming a bit panicked, mainly because _she_ looked panicked, and you wondered if you did something out of turn. But as soon as you thought that, the idea just dissipated into thin air, because _of course_ you didn’t do anything wrong. You did nothing wrong, so you didn’t have to panic.

So don’t panic.

Don’t panic.

Don’t.

You managed to convince yourself that you did nothing wrong, and sat back down. You didn’t realize that you clenched your fists so hard that you began to bleed, but it was okay, so as long as you could keep your emotions in control.

“I didn’t mean to look at it, I just saw them on the table and it kind of drew my attention? If it was supposed to be confidential, I won’t mention it to anyone, and I’ll forget I saw it,” you managed to say at last, and thank god you didn’t stutter. Alphys quickly realized what she was doing and apologized herself, becoming increasingly nervous as time went on. Maybe she thought you were going to yell at her or leave her or something? You weren’t sure. But despite your near-slip, you had to be the one comforting her, convincing her that no, you shouldn’t have looked at her papers without her permission and she didn’t have to worry because you weren’t able to understand it anyways. That seemed to calm her down quite a bit.

“I-It’s not that I mind if you l-look at it,” she mumbled. “That’s j-just stuff that the government w-wants to keep private from the public. And since I work their l-lab and all…”

You knew that the government worked with the monsters, but you thought it was just with their technology and stuff. Like how they were able to keep the bodies of the children intact despite being dead for so long. You didn’t realize that it involved, well, whatever _that_ was.

“No, it’s fine. I understand. My eyes are zipped,” you reassure, shutting your eyes tightly, drawing a nervous giggle from her. In all honesty, you really did want to know more about what she was working on. Something just drew you to her notes, something that made you want to look at it further, to understand it, to do _something_. At the very least, you wanted to know what the government was going to do with that information. Because as it was, the government “worked” with the monsters to “better understand” their abilities; of course, their magic tracking bracelets was just another way to oppress them, and that was only learning about their magic. You had no idea if those hearts were some sort of symbol or representation of something, but if it was more important than their magic, then didn’t that mean that the monsters were willingly giving away information on how to get killed?

But even if you knew what was going on, it wasn’t like you could do anything. You were just a civilian living in a modest apartment with four shut-ins, with no connections or information about monsters except that which the newscast allowed you to see. Even if you wanted to help her, you really couldn’t. Perhaps if your father was alive…he was a scientist, too. You don’t remember much about him, but what you do remember was that he was always looking for the extraterrestrial, the next scientific discovery that could have helped mankind. He was always trying to experiment for what was good for the public. If this new monster race came in a few years ago, he probably would have helped them.

Probably.

But he was dead, and has been for a long time, and all Alphys had left was you. And since your knowledge with science was rather limited, you could only be a support for her.

That was around five in the afternoon.

Now, you were in the guest room, sleeping. Or at least half-asleep, anyhow. As much as you kind of liked Alphys, you couldn’t seem to get comfortable with her. (And of course you couldn’t—who gets comfortable with someone after meeting them for the second time? Certainly some could, but you wouldn’t.) So even in the generous bed she offered you, you slept in it, sure, but some part of you was awake. You tossed and turned, pushed the pillows out of the way, and finally opted for curling in on yourself. You missed the extra appendage that crawled into your bed at night. You missed the warmth. You missed her tiny hands. You missed Enma. And you also missed Imani. And Anita. And…and Phoebe too, to an extent. You kind of wished they were by your side right now.

It was when you were thinking about that when someone came bursting into the guest room. You were so tired and out of it that you didn’t even flinch, despite hearing her grand entrance. And even though the voice was so incredibly loud, you didn’t even blink an eye.

The person stomped over to you, leaning over far enough that you could smell sea salt on her. It wasn’t a bad smell, but you really wished that she would move away. “Is this the human you became friends with? She looks like a wimp!”

You heard a voice farther away say something that was probably a protest to this person just barging into the room, but gosh you were too tired to concentrate on it. The most that you could think about was how you really wanted this person to go away or something, _god_ , didn’t they know about personal space? You could practically feel their breath on you.

“Nuh-uh, Alphys. I know these humans. They’ll act all sweet and polite on the outside, but they’re actually really super rotten on the inside! Just watch! I bet you this human’s soul is all dirty and grey! And if her soul is dirty, you gotta promise me to cut her off. I don’t want anything happening to you because of some dumb human.”

The term ‘soul’ sounded vaguely familiar…but you chalked it up to some fantasy or something. Wasn’t there something called soulmates or some dumb shit like that on anime? Or in those fanfictions that you loved so much…somewhere, you heard about it. But it really wasn’t important. What was important now was rolling over and—

But something was slowly being pulled from inside you.

Something that no one could look at.

Something that no one should look at.

Something that no one had the _right_ to look at.

And in that one moment, you blacked out and woke up.

…

You really couldn’t remember what happened before that. You just remembered that Alphys had stumbled into the room, about to apologize, and what she saw made her freeze entirely.

Your hand was at her throat, your nails pointed towards where a human’s jugular vein normally would be, and some sort of fish monster’s hand was extended towards your chest. The woman that you now identified as Undyne was still as a stone, still waiting to see what you were going to do.

What you were going to do?

What you were going to do was get the hell out of there, because obviously they were trying to do _something_ to you, and you didn’t like it. Alphys may have been sweet and kind, but this woman was crazy. Who tried to kill someone in their sleep? Well. Lots of people would, but. You didn’t do anything! You literally just wanted to hang out with Alphys because she seemed like a nice monster and—oh god this is all your fault. You knew monsters were evil, but because you heard so much about them, how horribly they were treated, you gave them a bit of sympathy.

That sympathy was obviously not needed.

You slapped away the webbed hand with the other hand not curled on Undyne’s neck, ignoring how she flinched, her other hand about to do something. You didn’t know, and you didn’t care. All you knew was that you needed to leave.

So you retracted your other hand (you really didn’t remember doing that—were you about to kill this monster? No way, you weren’t that cruel), and you quickly scrambled out of the bed. You didn’t bring a switch knife with you because you didn’t think you would need it, but obviously you did, because this monster was just about to kill you, and with your sweaty palms, you grabbed your backpack that you left on the side of the bed. It seemed that Alphys got over her shock, but she got over it too late. You already decided that you weren’t going to risk staying here. As it was, you extended yourself much farther than you ever wanted to.

You passed her with a small curt smile and said, “I think I’m going home now. Thanks for letting me come over.”

She reached her hand out to try and stop you, but you weren’t having it.

“B-b-but—”

“Listen, it was r-really nice to know you. But I think I have to go now. The cookies were good, by the way.”

And just like that, you opened the door and left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You find out more about the monsters’ new laws. In person. Because as you’re heading home, guess who is getting harassed? Yeah, take a wild guess. But hey, at the very least, Undyne starts to like you because of it. (Even though you don’t like her _at all_.)

“They did _what_ to you?”

You were snacking on one of the cookies you brought yesterday for Enma. You gave her the bag, and she hesitantly took it from you. Waving one of the chocolate chip cookies in your hand around, you said, “Not they, just her. That monster named Undyne, or whatever. I seriously thought I was going to die, you know! Like one minute I was kind of sleeping, and then the next this fish monster’s trying to suck my soul out or something. I don’t even know. It definitely felt that way.”

The five of you were sitting at the practically broken down wooden table you always sat at during your breakfast hour. When you had stormed back into the house without a word, they all had various degrees of guilt written on their faces—Imani having the guiltiest expression because she was the one who urged you to go. You didn’t say anything last night, just crawled into your bed and fell out. This morning, you had an extra appendage stuck to your back, but you found that you rather missed her this time around. So you weren’t too upset, even though it was just as hard as always to navigate around the house with her on your side. And after making their habitual meal of egg sandwiches (which you have slowly become tired of), you told them about yesterday. How everything was pretty much smooth sailing until Undyne came home, and found that nope, the new “friend” Alphys made wasn’t a monster.

“Describe it.” This entire time, Anita’s face was surprisingly neutral. But when you told her how it felt like something was being pulled from your chest like a magnet, almost like a suction cup, that neutrality slowly wore away. What replaced it was guilt—and maybe even a little bit of anger.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” she muttered. “And before you ask, yes, human souls are a thing. Monsters aren’t the only ones whose souls are accessible. Ours are too. And just like monsters can be destroyed if their soul is destroyed, so can we.”

“Has your soul ever been taken out?”

Her violet irises looked away, focusing on some part of the floor. She looked disgusted as she seemed to recall something. “…a while ago. It was definitely not the most comfortable feeling in the world. In any case, I’d like to ask that you don’t see her again, but…”

She gave you your phone back, and you had five missing calls and eight text messages, all from Alphys. You unlocked it, your eyes quickly scanning the messages.

(22:05)

 **Alphys** : Hey, I’m really really sorry about that. Undyne is really cautious about people lately.

(22:30)

 **Alphys** : Are you coming back? I already talked to Undyne, and she won’t do that again. She told me to tell you that she’s sorry.

(23:17)

 **Alphys** : Hey, I know you’re probably really mad, but could you please hear me out? I know that souls are really private. But Undyne wasn’t going to look at your memories or anything. Not that it excuses her behavior…I’m rambling aren’t I? I just wanted you to give me a chance to explain…

Each message got more desperate and longer than the last, and you found yourself feeling increasingly sorry for her. You didn’t even read the rest of them; you just locked back your phone and placed it in the middle of the table. Everyone stared at your phone like it was some sort of parasite. You couldn’t really blame them.

“So…Undyne. On a scale of one to ten, how bad was it?”

Anita sighed. She knew you too well, and she seemed to be resigned to the idea of you trying to become friends with Alphys again. And it wasn’t like it was Alphys’ fault her girlfriend was such a nutcase. Oh, that’s right…her _girlfriend_ …

Something clicked in the back of your mind.

“If she was just looking at your soul, then I’d say a solid seven. No matter what, your soul is the culmination of who you are, who you were, and how you came to be. Just glancing at it can tell you almost everything rudimentary about a person. What they cherish most, how they’ll act under pressure, and if they have ever been hurt. Yeah, you know where I’m going with this,” she finished, her eyes staring directly into yours. Placing her arms on the table, she leaned forward, some of the locks of her hair mixing with the food on the table.

“She’ll be able to see that you’re abnormal. And if she does, she may not react to you very well. I don’t know how well this Undyne knows human souls, but being a monster, she’s bound to know more than we do. I wouldn’t put it past her to proclaim you a threat and try to exterminate you, and then throw your dead body in some ditch. She didn’t see it, did she?”

“No.” Thinking about how you had her in an almost deadlock state, you said, “I don’t really remember much, but…I think I was going to kill her, or something.”

Anita looked sadistically amused. “Oh?”

She really shouldn’t be so happy to hear that. “Well, I was sleeping, and I really didn’t know what was going on, and then I just felt like I was about to be killed or something and I blacked out and…none of that makes sense, does it?”

“No, it does. It makes perfect sense, actually.” She glanced at Phoebe for a quick second, and the two of them shared this expression that you weren’t sure what to make of. Were you missing something? “It’s completely normal for a person to have the fight or flight response when exposed to danger. You just happened to choose to fight, and that’s fine. You only disabled her enough that she wouldn’t have been able to see your soul. I don’t think you would have killed her, because you’re too nice.”

Well, her response made sense, but…somehow, it still felt like you were missing something. But when you tried to strain your brain to figure it out, it felt…like something was blocking you. How strange. You guessed it must have been nothing, because you would have realized whatever was wrong, right?

“Alright…so what should I do about Undyne?”

“Nothing.”

You gawked at her. “Seriously? I tell you I almost got killed and—”

“But she wasn’t trying to kill you, right? She was just trying to look at your soul to see if you were a threat. And you’re strong enough that you’ll be able to take them on, no problem. I don’t think it was right for her to do that, and if she ever gets the bright idea to try that again, it won’t be you that’ll be dealing with her this time, but.” She gave you a small smile and leaned back. “You’re not going to stop being friends with Alphys, are you? Because even after all of this, you still trust her.”

Well, when she put it that way…

“And because Alphys and Undyne are lovers, you’re going to have to deal with Undyne, too. As much as Alphys is happy that she found another anime fanatic, she’s not going to give up her girlfriend of who knows how many years for you. So you’ll just have to deal with Undyne, too. Or do you want to stop being friends with Alphys?”

You thought about it.

Was Alphys worth the trouble? Was she worth getting hurt over?

But…she _did_ say that she talked to Undyne…

Was she worth trusting? You weren’t entirely sure. But the fact that you had to think about it probably said a lot. For someone like her, a monster who had a girlfriend that could probably kill you the moment she took out your soul…the answer should have been a resounding ‘no.’ Two weeks ago, it probably would have been. But now…

Maybe you’d at least hear her out. You weren’t the best at speaking, but at the very least, you were good at listening.

“…I’ll at least hear her out, I suppose,” you finally responded a bit weakly. Imani looked like she wanted you to change your mind, but you gave her a weak smile. “And if she or Undyne hurts me again, I promise I won’t talk to her anymore. Deal?”

Slowly, they all nodded. At this point, Imani got up from the table, her face a sour prune. Enma looked from you to her, but eventually stuck with Imani. Well, if that didn’t hurt a little bit. Even so, you didn’t make a move to stop her. Even if you wanted to make her feel better, you knew you couldn’t. Imani was always the most emotional out of the five of you, and if she was upset, well, only time could really make that better.

When she was almost in front of her door, she said, “I know you already know this, but. If something happens to you…we…we can’t live without you. You’re as close to family as it gets for me. For all of us, really. So I won’t stop you from making bad decisions.” She laughed a bit bitterly. “You could even say I even caused this, because I was so excited that you made a new friend, especially a monster friend. But still. Just…be careful, alright? This time, your self-preservation might have saved you, but next time, who knows what will happen? I just…I can’t believe I was so close to losing you. Anyways, I’m going into my room, see you all later.”

She closed the door and locked it, leaving you, Anita, and Phoebe by yourselves. Without Imani and Enma, the room felt infinitely colder.

So you got up too, grabbing your phone from the dining room table. You texted Alphys and asked if you could come over again. In seconds, she replied with an affirmative.

* * *

As soon as you rang on her doorbell, she immediately opened it for you. She looked so out of breath that you almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“I’m s-so, so sorry f-for yesterday. I-I-I,” she paused and swallowed. “I thought that you wouldn’t w-want to be my friend anymore. I talked to Undyne and—oh, I-I’m such a bad host. Please come in.”

She moved aside for you, and your heart caved in a little bit. With a small nod, you walked into her house, slipping off your shoes like you did the first time, and stood in the middle of the living room. You didn’t feel comfortable sitting anywhere, in case Undyne was lurking somewhere nearby. Actually, you didn’t feel comfortable at _all_ here. You were only here because you wanted her to explain herself. You weren’t even sure if you wanted to do the whole friendship thing.

…yeah, you could lie and tell yourself that. But in actuality, you wanted her to make a plausible excuse. If all you wanted to hear was Alphys’ excuses, you could have heard that over the phone. You didn’t even need to hear her voice to hear her excuses; you could have sent her a text about it. But no, you personally went to her house because you wanted her to explain herself. You wanted her to give you a reason why pursuing this possible friendship was worth it.

Alphys came back to the living room with two dainty cups of tea. They looked like antiques. When she sat down on one of the couches and glanced up at you to see if you’d do the same, you caved a bit more and sat next to her. Because she wasn’t the one who hurt you after all. It was her overprotective girlfriend.

Her overprotective _monster_ girlfriend.

Right.

Something clicked in the back of your head again.

“I r-really want to apologize again,” she started, wringing out her hands a bit. Her hands trembled a bit, but by the time she reached over and took a sip of whatever tea it was, she calmed down considerably. Curious, you picked up your tea cup and took a sniff. It smelt like peppermint tea, one of your favorites. You chanced a sip and found out that it tasted pretty darn good.

“Undyne isn’t h-here right now. She has a job as a security o-officer for a precinct a few miles away from here. It’s so we can k-keep in touch. But never mind that. Uh, I s-should probably explain w-why she’s like t-that. So, uh, you understand and don’t t-take too much offense to it.”

She pulled back her sleeves on her green and yellow shirt, exposing the bracelet differentiating humans and monsters. The system the government made with the King’s offering of peace. The reason why you’re sitting here at this very moment.

“D-do you know about this?”

You nodded. “It’s a magical tracking device, right? It tracks how much magic you’re using at any given time and serves as a governmental ID.”

She seemed surprised you knew that much. “Yeah, that sounds about r-right. It’s, uh, also a reason for people to…to attack us. Because w-we can’t defend ourselves. Both Undyne and I got attacked a lot. A-and because Undyne is an officer of the state, she has a bit more liberty t-than I do, but s-she’s also hurt a lot more than I am. We’ve met some nice people here and there, b-but for the most part, it’s been kind of hard on us. Not! To say that _you’d_ do that, but…she’s always b-been really cautious when it comes to people.”

So in other words, they were attacked so much by humans that they were automatically on the lookout for any human that might get too close. And because you were at their house, at night, with no other supervision than Alphys, who couldn’t defend herself, her girlfriend…

“By why my soul? That’s what she was trying to take out, right? Why couldn’t she just attack me directly?”

Alphys shrunk a bit into herself. “I didn’t think souls were t-that much in the know. I was telling her not to—it’s n-not an excuse, I promise, I really _was_ —but, uh, what most monsters can see is only the normative state of a soul. T-that is, what a soul ought to be like. S-so if your soul is orange, then you’re supposed to be brave, but it d-doesn’t necessarily mean that you are _going_ to be brave. Y-you could say it’s the ‘ideal’ state of a person’s b-being. The only way to tell for sure is to pull out a person’s soul for a c-confrontation. S-so Undyne was trying to pull out your soul to see if you really were good or not. She d-didn’t want to attack you.”

A lot of information flew over your head, being that you knew almost nothing about human souls and monster souls, but almost as if it rejiggered back into your brain, in seconds, you understood what she was saying.

“B-but it still wasn’t right! I-I let her know that. Just like monster souls a-are really important, so are human souls. They’re the very culmination of your being. And pulling t-that out was very intimate, if it’s n-not consensual. I-I should have done more to stop her. I’m really s-sorry. I know it isn’t much, b-but if there’s a way I can make it up to you, I’d like to…”

You shook your head. Perhaps some part of you knew that was the reason she did it, because your previous anger and incredulousness began to evaporate. At this point in time, you were just happy that nothing bad happened to you. And it wasn’t like you were going to talk to that Undyne person, so as long as you stayed away from her, everything would be alright. “No, I understand. Thanks for being honest with me. If anything, I’d like to apologize. I don’t really remember much, but I think I might have threatened her? Actually, shouldn’t you be angry at me…?”

“N-no, that’s fine. Undyne wouldn’t have gotten hurt so easily. I a-admit you surprised me, but it w-wasn’t like it was unwarranted.” Her eyes grew a bit wider. “You don’t remember what happened?”

Feeling self-conscious, you rubbed your arm. “No, not really. I just remembered that something was being pulled out of me, and well, I kind of blacked out? I just felt bad because I don’t even remember what I did…”

She stared at you with newfound interest, and it wasn’t the type of interest you wanted. You almost shrunk into yourself with her fascination. “W-what?”

Not wanting to upset you, she quickly shook her head, almost as if reassuring you that nothing was wrong, and sipped from her almost lukewarm cup of tea. “It’s nothing. I j-just found that interesting. You know, the s-scientist in me.” Seeing your interest, she continued. “I’ve seen m-many people’s reactions during a pseudo-confrontation. Uh, since we can only h-have our rights as long as we c-cooperate with the government’s researchers. Our k-knowledge is being applied to humans now. Anyways. Some people can’t deal w-with it because it’s uncomfortable, while others are alright with it. But, uh, I’ve n-never heard of someone ‘b-blacking out’ during a confrontation. You must be v-very weak to magical changes.” Even though she said that, it was as if something didn’t sit with her, but she physically waved it away.

“But that’s not important. W-would you be willing to still be friends with me…?”

* * *

In the end, your kindness and understanding ruled out any incredulity you had, and you ended up staying friends with Alphys. You left early enough that you wouldn’t run into Undyne again and headed home. Enma was the first to greet you, running into your arms and giving you the tightest hug you’ve ever gotten from her. She wouldn’t let go either, even when you returned her hug just as tight.

“She’s been waiting for you for the last few hours,” Anita said, peering at you for a few moments that probably meant, ‘ _We all were_ ’. “She kept wandering around here in circles. Nothing we did comforted her. So she’s probably going to stay like that for a while.”

Enma squeezed tighter, almost as if she agreed.

You bent down and lifted her up, shifting her on your back. She felt as light as a feather, almost as if she wasn’t there. The only thing that reminded you that she was there was the faint breath on your neck that smelled like blueberries. It probably was from the breakfast she ate, since she pretty much eats whatever appeals to her the most, unlike the rest of you. Well, and Imani, too. She ate whatever she wanted, too.

“I’m sorry I made you worry,” you told her, smiling when she snuggled into your back. You missed that more than you would admit, and you’ve more or less gotten used to her there. “But I talked to Alphys, and she said that Undyne wouldn’t do that again. And even if she tries, I’ll be out of there so fast it’ll make her head spin,” and as you said this, you twirled around in a circle, making Enma laugh. That smile was something you could die for. God, you really missed this barnacle.

“You wanted pictures, right? You wanna see it?”

She nodded, and you whisked her away into the living room, sitting on the burgundy couch that you loved so much. Pulling out your phone, you took out your phone and unlocked it. She leaned forward, smiling brightly at the pictures you and Alphys took: one on the couch, both of you holding pocky sticks like kunai, another with you in the kitchen, when you two were baking the cookies together. After that whole scientist thing, you offered to help her bake, and even though she was flustered, you convinced her that you just liked to cook; you didn’t think she was bad at what she did at all. And eventually, you were able to convince her to help out.

This entire time, Imani didn’t come out of her room, and you felt awful, but you also knew she needed her space. And as much as you wanted to talk to her, you knew that she needed time. So you busied yourself with cooking and studying for tomorrow’s classes. Everyone watched you without a word.

The next morning found you sitting in another class with Napstablook, who upon seeing you had lit up like a Christmas tree. He looked so happy that you had to smile yourself, because if you were honest, you were glad to see him. And because Imani _still_ hadn’t come out of her room, you didn’t have anything to make you late this morning. You left on time like you always did, without the stress of the mass of people on public transport (because at six in the morning, barely anyone was on the bus; it was only a half an hour later when they started pouring in like flies), and managed to be the second one to class.

You waved at him as you sat down right next to him, a staunch difference from the week before, where you sat two seats away from him. You still didn’t know him very well, but you knew that he was nothing but sweet. And as someone who always seemed to curl into himself, he didn’t strike you as the type of person to really lash out at others. “How’ve you been?”

Wordlessly, he slowly pushed his computer towards you. “I’ve…been working on some more music. I don’t really hang out with anyone on the weekends, so…this is pretty much how I’ve been. Do…you want to listen?”

You had just hung out with someone—a monster, granted, but it was still someone, more than you did this entire year, hell, these last five years—and while it was stressful, you knew that being with someone that shared that same likes as you was fun. It was awful too, because you didn’t know if you were going to offend the person you were going to sit next to, and you didn’t know what to say and when to say it and _how_ to say it. You were scared in your own skin, and a coward in your own right. And you weren’t determined to do anything. You weren’t even determined to stay alive, which was probably part of the reason you could be so accepting of a monster possibly taking your life. Because if anyone were to take your soul, it would be the monsters that deserved it. They, after all, were the ones that were hurt by humans the most. But still, even though you were such an awful person, you wanted to make Napstablook know how it feels to have someone that shared

You decided that you were going to hang out with Napstablook too.

“Yeah, actually. I’ve been wanting to listen to it all day,” you casually replied as you pulled out your earphones. “And…if you don’t hang out with anyone over the weekends…”

Don’t lose your nerve.

Don’t lose your nerve.

Just ask him.

 _Ask_ him!

“T-t-then could we hang out sometime? Maybe…next…week?”

Please don’t say no.

Please don’t say no.

It took so much out of you to even initiate something like this. You weren’t sure what you’d do if he said no. You’d feel so embarrassed after putting yourself out like this. Even though you knew that he’d never ridicule you, but if he had something coming up this week, you just—you didn’t want to be rejected…god, what if he didn’t feel close enough to you? You were just a human, an awkward human, but he was an awkward monster, and—and—and—maybe that’s why you thought this would be a good idea, but now that you thought about it, you were starting to realize that this really wasn’t a good idea, none of it was—

But Napstablook looked like Christmas just came early for him. His face brightened, and he had the cutest smile you have ever seen. He looked so pleased, and damn it all if it didn’t tickle you pink. He looked so eager, which made you even _more_ eager, so much so that you began to plan out your hang-out—asking him where he lived (because he couldn’t come over your house, especially not so soon from Undyne’s attack—or threat—or checkup—or _whatever_ she was trying to do), and what he wanted to do—until the very last minute. In fact, you two were so excited that you didn’t hear your classmates come in. And when they came in, you froze.

They were staring at you like you were some sort of alien.

And then they started to murmur words.

Words that you were so afraid you’d hear.

Words that made you regret talking in the first place.

Words like…

“…monster fucker…”

“…creep…”

“…how disgusting…”

And you felt your heart seize, because this was happening all over again, and they were saying all this stuff about you, because damn it, you knew this would happen, this is why you didn’t want to let people inside…

But wait a minute. They didn’t talk to you for the entire semester. Months went by, and everyone was perfectly fine staying in their little cliques. The only reason why they were talking to you was…

Napstablook.

And next to you, he was on the verge of tears, because he knew that you were being bullied because of him, and you made a split decision. Picking up your earphones, you slid it into one of two jacks of his computer. You lifted one of the earphones, gesturing that he should do the same. To leave this classroom would be to let these people win. To leave this classroom would be admitting that they’re right, when they’re _not_. And you weren’t really a monster fanatic, you really weren’t. You wouldn’t go to the monster rallies people had every month, and if asked, you probably still wouldn’t trust monsters as far as you could spit. Especially because of Undyne. But Napstablook wasn’t just a monster; he was _Napstablook_. The depressing, self-depreciating monster who took the shape of a ghost, the talented, kind monster who wouldn’t push his will on others.

You already decided that you would stay by him, if needs be.

So you found a song, any song, and you played it.

After a short while, he followed after you and plugged in the jack for his headphones into the second hole.

The both of you tuned out the entire class until the professor came in. And when he did, Napstablook offered you a shy smile as thanks. You smiled back, because if he thought that you were going to ditch him just because of these creeps, then he had another thing coming.

If there was one reason why you hated having friends, it was because you were ready to give up everything for them.

It also meant that if Napstablook were to ever turn against you, you’d be completely vulnerable to him.

But somehow, you thought that if it were him, then it would be alright.

* * *

All of your classes were exhausting, the music one included (ever since last week, it feels like the professor has been extra hard on you), and you trudged home a different route than you usually would, mainly because you didn’t want to deal with so many people, even if it meant taking a longer time to get home. So you took a completely different street through some back alleys, and lo and behold, you saw the _one_ person that you didn’t want to see. The one monster you didn’t want to see.

Could your day get any worse?

“Listen, I gotta get home, punk, so you either move your scrawny ass over, or I’ll move it for you,” Undyne hissed, her stance posed to fight. Right in front of her—and right in front of you, since he was separating you and her—a younger man was blocking the way. He wore a three-piece business suit, you know, the really sharp ones that make you look twice at a person before moving on. He was relatively close to your age, too, with only a few frown marks marring his face. He moved towards her, and she moved back, a little bit of sweat running down her face.

“Hah. Who’s going to move me? You know that monsters can’t use magic unless someone’s watching them. And no one’s here, just you and me, monster, so you can’t do jack shit. Now you know that your kind really shouldn’t be here, and you definitely shouldn’t be entering our government like how you’ve been doing, so I’ll make a deal with you. You peacefully back out of the city along with a few of your closest family, and you get off scotch-free. Sounds nice, right?”

And here was a prime example of the unfair laws that the monsters were given. Because as a police officer, Undyne had the power to detain this person. She could also use the maximum amount of magic, from what you’ve heard. Deadly force was never the solution, but like human police officers, it was a viable option. The problem was that if Undyne were to use her magic, she wouldn’t be in the wrong, but you knew she would have been heavily criticized if anyone found out. Although a monster police officer could detain people, no problem, there had to be substantial proof that the person detained committed a crime or was about to commit a crime. And as for hate crimes, there _still_ had to be a third-party to witness the entire thing. And this guy didn’t look like the type to just sit around and get overtaken by a monster. He looked like the crafty type, the type that would leave it alone for now, only to stab her in the back when she least expected it.

Even if it wasn’t her fault in the first place.

But even so, it really wasn’t any of your business. Undyne was a monster like any other, and even worse, she tried to take out your soul. You understood why she did—she wanted to keep her girlfriend safe after all—but it didn’t excuse the fact that what she did was wrong. She almost violated you, and that wasn’t acceptable. She was loud, and rude, and got into your personal space when you were half knocked out, and by no means did you like her. You hated her.

But when you thought about Alphys, one of two friends that you just made, moving away…when you thought of how distraught Alphys would be if she found out her girlfriend was threatened to leave just because someone was too stuck-up and specist to allow a new population to breathe the same air as him, well…

Your legs moved before you thought twice.

And something came out of your mouth that if asked, you wouldn’t be able to tell them, but at that point in time, it didn’t matter. Their eyes both darted to you, one of mild surprise and the other of utter shock. You supposed that maybe Undyne didn’t think that you would speak up. And you weren’t going to, if she was the only reason. But because of Alphys…well. Like it or lump it, you liked Alphys. So you couldn’t stand to see her move away.

But just because you liked Alphys didn’t mean that you’d entertain Undyne. After he left, spitting the ground right next to you like some sort of hooligan, you didn’t stay a moment longer. You didn’t want her gratitude, because you didn’t help Undyne for herself; you helped her because of _Alphys_. And even in so-called helping, you didn’t lift a finger. You didn’t tell the monster that he should be ashamed of himself, because if you were honest, if they were all like Undyne, you really didn’t want them to stay. You didn’t scream or shout or point a finger or anything. (When would you have the courage to do _that_? Hah. That’s hilarious.) You just pointed the attention to yourself. Made yourself known that yes, there was a bystander watching the whole thing.

Affiliated yourself with them, just like you told yourself you wouldn’t do.

But it was done and over with, and if you could help it, it wasn’t going to happen again.

Hopefully.

On the busy street, where you kept your head down and your eyes to the floor (you really don’t want another run-in with a monster), you felt yourself brush against someone. Immediately, you tensed, because you really didn’t want to talk with someone, even to apologize. But you figured you had to say something, mutter an apology or something, right? So you opened your mouth to apologize, but he beat you to it.

“sorry about that bud. you alright?”

And what made you look up was his baritone voice, something that sent a small little shiver down your spine. What could you say? As much as you hated people, you were always a sucker for voices like his, you know, the voices that sounded like melted chocolate drizzled all over sweetened strawberries. Yeah, _that_ kind of voice. The voice you’d want to hear twenty-four seven, if only it could calm you down. You weren’t sure what type of person you were expecting to be attached to that voice, but what you saw blew past your expectations.

Because it wasn’t a person who sounded like that, it was a monster.

A skeleton monster.

A godforsaken reaper, from the looks of it.

Even though you purposely went into the overcrowded street _just_ to avoid this very scenario, look at what you encountered.

It was probably really rude to stare, but you were seriously caught off guard. And afraid. So, so, so afraid. Because there was a living, breathing (?) skeleton staring you down with white pinpricks of light that served as pupils, with his face etched into a permanent smile. And it freaked the hell out of you.

He gazed at your face and then his eyes flickered to your chest, which you instinctively protected with an arm. You weren’t sure why you did that, but you felt something similar to how you did on Saturday night. You felt that he was dangerous, and you needed to get the hell out of there.

You needed to leave now.

“hey—”

“S-sorry,” you mumbled, staring down at your feet. “Sorry for bumping into y-you.”

Without wasting another second, you ran down the street as fast as you could, ignoring all the people you bumped into in the process, not even apologizing once to any of them. You ignored the grumbles, the grunts, the outcries of “watch where you’re going;” you ignored it all, just to gain some distance from that it. From _him_.

Without looking back even once.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You hang out with Napstablook as promised and you meet Undyne again at Alphys’ house. You’re less than pleased about the latter.

A week later from getting the worst scare of your life found you at Napstablook’s house.

Unlike Alphys, who had a somewhat bodacious McMansion, a healthy mixture of gaudy and intimidating, Napstablook had a house similar along the lines of your apartment. The front of it was a bland white, its paint fading with age and discolored from the weather changes, and the sides a sickly tan. A broken mailbox greeted you at the front step, with its dilapidated flag all but flailing in the wind, and uneven steps tried to trip you as you walked on them. When you opened the screen door, it creaked awfully, reminding you a bit bitterly of the house that you once shared with your parents.

You gave the door a few short raps, listening for any sound that might indicate that Napstablook was even inside. Despite his shyness, he apparently went out quite often with his family, some ghost that took the form of a worn-out Mew Mew costume, and the infamous “Mettatron”—or was it “Mettaton”? You couldn’t remember, but you’d know his face if you ever saw him. He was the world’s biggest fascination in almost every way. He was one of the only successful monsters, if only because he was a robot through and through, with the soul of a living being. He was what every engineer dreamed of making. No one knew who made him (and he refused to share, no matter how much he was asked), but even so, he was just as widely accepted into society. In fact, according to Napstablook, he’s the one who even got him into your college in the first place for free. Originally, his cousin wanted to send him to a good school—like Julliard, or Columbia, or Yale, or Williams, or Pomona, or, if Napstablook was feeling particularly adventurous, Guildhall or Maastricht—but Napstablook refused. He said that he didn’t want to take advantage of his cousin’s kindness, which you thought was sweet. But if _your_ cousin wanted to send you to an Ivy League for free, no strings attached, well, you weren’t going to stop them.

Maybe this was part of the reason why your family never reached out to you.

After a few minutes of silence, you tried again, and this time, the door slowly creaked open. Napstablook looked so surprised to see you, and you weren’t sure what to make of it. Did he think you the type of person to back from a promise, or is it that he just thought so little of himself that he thought you’d change your mind? Maybe it was because you liked him a bit, but you really hoped it wasn’t the latter.

His eyes lowered to the bag of food you brought with you, and he looked a little embarrassed.

“Oh…I wasn’t expecting you’d come.”

You slowly took a deep breath, anticipating the worst. “…should I not have?”

He shook his head and moved aside for you. “I’m happy you did…sorry…”

Feeling a strange sense of déjà vu, you comforted him, telling him that no, he did nothing wrong. And after ten minutes of your coaxing, he finally calmed down enough to welcome you into his house. He shyly offered you something to drink after sitting at his dining room table a while, but…the small bottle of watered down juice he offered you slipped right through your fingers. You smiled nervously as you tried fruitlessly to pick it up, not wanting to appear rude. But it became more and more obvious that you wouldn’t be able to eat or drink _anything_ he had to offer. Although you brought your food to share with him, really, you were glad Imani thought to pack it, because it was all that you could eat. But when you began eating what you packed, he looked so sullen that you ended up offering him some, even though by now you knew what would happen.

…and just like you thought, the food phased right through him.

Oh well.

After making some small talk—in which you learned that after he got his degree, he planned on traveling with his cousins, who already employed a monster named Shyren—he slowly stood up and wandered into the living room. You were curious, so you quickly finished the last of your food and followed him.

“Is something wrong?”

He shook his head and then stared at the floor. “…normally after a good meal I like to lay on the floor and feel like garbage. It’s a family tradition. But…” He raised his eyes from the floor onto you, and you somehow had the feeling that he wanted something from you. Did he want you to leave so he could do his thing? And wait, feel like garbage? How on earth was that a family tradition? Well. You weren’t one to judge. If people knew that you ate the same meal for the last ten or so years at the same time of day in the same spot with the same people who did the same things, well, they’d think that you weren’t wrapped too tightly. They might even think that you had OCD or something like that, but that really wasn’t the case. It was just…habit. It was soothing, doing the same things, and your roommates have long since accepted that this was what you needed to keep calm. Besides, it’s not like you _had_ to do it. You could stop at any time.

Probably.

But either way, he was still staring at you, and you figured that this was probably one of those social cues that you always missed. You laughed a little too loudly, quickly backing away from the living room. You hadn’t expected for this hangout session to be so short, but hey, you weren’t going to scoff at the only opportunity you had to hang out with someone who pretty much gave you a chance. If he wanted his privacy to relax and be himself, you wouldn’t intrude on him.

“ _Oh_. Oh, that’s fine. So, uh, I’ll leave you to it, then,” you say with a smile that felt too wide for your face. Your voice was a bit too light, a bit too high, and you wondered if your emotions were just as plain on your face as they were in your voice. His eyes immediately became wider, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but you weren’t going to stick around so he could make you feel better with his apologies. He probably wanted to say that he didn’t mean it like that, but you knew he did. He just didn’t want to make you feel bad, and you thought that was so sweet of him.

“So I’ll see you around, alright? Maybe we can hang out again some time? And I dunno, maybe I could try that sometime with you? Your family tradition? It sounds similar to meditation, and I do that sometimes.”

“But—”

You were already in front of his door, your bag in one hand and the other clutching his knob. You released it and gave it a small wave.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine, it’s fine, you don’t have to tell me, I know. I’ll see you Thursday, alright?”

He looked a bit resigned and you promised yourself to send a text message to him when you got home, something that would make him smile. But then you thought about it, and you figured that he would probably be distracted from whatever he was doing if you texted him, so you changed your mind. Whatever. It wasn’t like you weren’t going to see him tomorrow and Thursday. You could just talk to him then. You hoped that doing this wouldn’t make him feel like you were brushing him off, but you heard it all already. And quite frankly, you didn’t want to hear it again, so…this was fine. Napstablook wouldn’t hate you for this.

He wouldn’t, right?

…

Maybe you should stay and hear him out?

Maybe you should just do the whole song and dance so he won’t leave you?

But Napstablook is too kind for that, there’s no way he would just…cut you off just like that, right?

But you weren’t worth it. You hadn’t done anything much, and you _still_ didn’t like monsters and he probably knew that and he knew he could find someone much better but all he had to talk to was you and maybe he was just putting up with this until he could find someone who was actually worth his time—

Someone worth his time—

You weren’t worth his time—

You weren’t worth _anything_ —

There was a faint wetness in the palm on your left hand, the one that was holding up your bag of mostly eaten snacks, and slowly, you felt your vision becoming darker and darker, and all the daily sounds that you abhorred became increasingly hollow in your ears.

Not wasting another minute, you left before you could psyche yourself into freaking out any more than you already had.

* * *

You stayed home from school the next day.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

And before you knew it, the entire week went by, and you hadn’t moved from your bed. Hadn’t even gotten up to use the bathroom, nothing. Your roommates took turns pounding down the door that you so carefully locked. And you knew that they could come in if they really wanted to, but they were giving you your space, your time to hedge out, to regain your senses. During that entire time, Enma sat next to you. She was the only one who snuck into your room despite the door being locked, and she stayed with you the entire time, silently holding your hand. But besides her, Imani and Anita took turns visiting you. The first night you had told them that you were tired and that you needed a bit of rest, and they believed you. The second night you had told them that you weren’t feeling good, and Anita was suspicious, but Imani told you that she’d have the others make you something. But you didn’t really care to make an excuse the rest of the days, and that’s when they started banging down your door.

Was that how it went again? You weren’t sure.

Either way, this was nothing new to them. It wasn’t as if they were worried—it was more like they knew that it occasionally got bad and they wanted you to get out of your room. They wanted you to know that someone was there for you, that someone cared for you. They wanted to support you. And after almost two weeks ago where you came home crying because of some irrational fear you had to a skeleton that didn’t even _do_ anything, they were extra clingy. Imani ventured with you outside for the first time in forever, and Anita volunteered to pick you up from school. She wasn’t talkative, but just her silently walking besides you soothed you somehow.

But…after thinking about Napstablook, they just didn’t seem to be enough.

He was your first ever friend in a long time. Alphys, too, but she had Undyne, and after meeting up with Undyne, you hadn’t really kept up with Alphys in fear of meeting her extra overprotective girlfriend that tried to look at your soul. You still texted her occasionally, and you traded anime jokes and references and talked about forums and theories and new releases to stupid anime shows that you haven’t kept up with in forever—but you didn’t go to her house again after that. She didn’t ask that much anymore either, probably because the few times she did ask in the beginning, you rejected her pretty quickly. Made some stupid excuses that she probably easily saw through, being that she was a scientist and all. And then after that, you pretty much just talked with Napstablook a lot.

…so…if he left you, you would be alone again.

Alone in this fantasy world of yours, being the sorrowful heroine of your own pathetic sob story.

And you were afraid of that.

Being alone, that was.

You would be worthless and alone, watching others with burning jealousy as they talked among their stupid friends about stupid things, all while rejecting the idea for yourself, because you knew how _that_ went. And before, you admitted to yourself that you didn’t mind it. Your roommates were more than fine enough for you. You all knew each other for a fairly long time. If anyone ever saw the five of you together, they may have even thought that you and they were sisters or cousins, even though you all looked nothing alike. The five of you walked the same. Maybe even talked the same on occasion. And you were all so touchy-feely, so intimate, and so _personal_. Before you met Napstablook, before you met Alphys, before you made an effort to talk to people (because in the end, monster were people too, weren’t they?), to be an example of what you would have wanted for yourself, your roommates would have been enough.

But…now that you took from the fruit of the tree and loved it, you couldn’t go back to how you used to be. If Napstablook hated you now and you were left with them…little stints of talking with your eccentric roommates wouldn’t be enough. You would be empty again, and you were afraid of that.

…

You knew you were being melodramatic. Who cares if he left you? If they both left you? You’ve survived so long on your own without any outside human interaction, much less _monster_ interaction; you could go on the rest of your life just like this.

You just needed some time to recuperate, to distance yourself a bit. That’s all.

Your roommates knew that too, you were sure.

Well, most of them, anyways.

Next to you, Enma pulled on your sleeve.

“Your phone’s vibrating.”

“Leave it,” you muttered, facing away from her and to the wall. “If it’s a wrong number, they’ll hang up eventually.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. Then after a good ten minutes, she released your hand and rolled over on your mahogany carpet, crawling over to where you had thrown your phone next to the closet door on the floor. Your hand felt sweaty and cold for the first time in the five days you’ve been sitting in here now that she wasn’t holding it.

“Enma,” you started, but found out that she already unlocked your phone and was perusing your messages with incredible speed for a child. You sighed, sitting up a bit.

“ _Enma_.”

She held up your phone in both of her small, chubby fingers, staring at you with her beautiful sapphire eyes that you could never seem to say no to. “But it’s Alphys. Don’t you like her still?”

“…it has nothing to do with like or dislike, I just—I just need time,” you said, and even that much that you had said seemed to be a chore. Why wasn’t she sitting here with you? Why was that phone even in her hand again? Why was this conversation even happening again? You didn’t know, but you really wished it would stop. The silence was just fine before, wasn’t it? Was talking with people really needed?

Enma seemed to think so.

She crawled back to you, the phone still lit up her hands, and some inexplicable desire in you wanted to grab the phone and break it—but you had self-control. So you patiently watched as she reopened your text messages and showed you.

You had to remind yourself that despite her behavior, Enma was only a six year old child who was just as unstable as you were.

She pulled on your sleeve again, and you sighed.

“Later, alright? Later.”

Reluctantly, very reluctantly, she conceded. She brought her hands back to her chest, and then she held them meekly on her lap, fiddling with the phone in one hand and rubbing her fingers with the other, a nervous habit that she sometimes had. You felt a twinge of guilt shoot through you like a shot of epinephrine, and you quickly moved to apologize. Because by god she shouldn’t feel nervous because of you. Not her.

“Listen,” you cooed, rubbing her hand soothingly, “I’m sorry. It has nothing to do with you, I’m just…I just need time, that’s all.”

She glanced at you briefly before staring down at your phone. It still was vibrating occasionally, reminding you both that Alphys had most likely sent a battering of text messages. “…is it because they’ll leave?”

You flinched a bit, moving away from her. “What?”

She looked unsure of herself, but then when she glanced back up at you, her face grew more certain, albeit still so very nervous and shy. “It’s because they’ll leave you? Because they won’t like you?”

And you weren’t quite sure how to answer that, because yes, she was right, but for her to ask you that question made you feel, well, odd. You didn’t like to lie to your roommates; you all promised each other that when you first moved into this apartment complex, but to tell a little girl about how you were feeling and to expect her to understand how you felt—you couldn’t do that to her. If Imani asked you that question, maybe; if Anita asked, probably, but Enma?

She didn’t seem to think you’d answer anyways, because she continued, her fingers rubbing together even faster. “Well, I love you a lot. And Anita loves you too. And Imani always loves you. And my sister…she’d kill someone for you, she told me so. Phoebe always tells me how much you need to be protected, cause you’re really weak. I don’t think you’re weak though. You’re just like me. But…are we not good enough?” Her fingers rubbed harder, and her nails snagged on the side of her hand, causing a thin line of blood to trail down her hand. She didn’t seem to notice, but you did.

You lifted her bleeding hand, interlocking your fingers into hers. Almost immediately did her anxiety die down, and she stared at your hand. Using that to your advantage, you lifted your interlocked hands and brought it to your lips, smiling when she seemed to relax, her shoulders slumping and her head leaning against your own shoulder, almost in a similar position before your phone vibrated. After you kissed her fingers, you reassured her.

“You guys are more than enough for me. You’re perfect, Enma. And I love all of you so very much. So for you, I’ll try to talk to her, alright? I’ll see what she wants.”

“…really?”

“Really. See, watch me.”

And against your better judgement, you took the phone from her hands and opened it right in front of her. Ignoring all of the messages sent by Alphys, you scrolled to the very bottom and read it next to her. Apparently, she was asking you to hang out at her house again. You already knew that this was probably a bad idea, but you couldn’t disappoint Enma, who was staring at you just as intently as she did her television programs. And as soon as you told Alphys that you were going, she gave you one of those tight hugs that said more than a million words and you returned it. Above all else, above even yourself, what matters was that Enma was happy. Enma, and Imani, and Phoebe, and Anita…

And then you realized that you really were just being melodramatic. It’s okay if you made mistakes. It’s okay if Napstablook was offended by you. It’s okay if they left you alone. Because in the end, you’re not losing anything; you’re just returning back to the state you were before. The potential happiness that you were always chasing after—it was right here, right in this apartment.

So as long as you had the four of them, you could do anything.

* * *

You knocked on her door before you could regret it.

The moment you had come out of your bat cave, Imani had leaped off the couch and ran to you from the living room, smothering you in a shower of kisses that you were too tired to fight off. She had released you, giving you a quick glimpse before squeezing you again. You weren’t sure how you looked; it’s been five days and a shower and general hygiene hasn’t seen your face for quite some time, but it must have been pretty bad, because she gave you a sympathetic look before releasing you. And as much as you regretted the words that came from your lips when you told her about your plan to meet Alphys, that small bit of relief that appeared in her eyes gave you enough of an indication that you made the right choice, mainly because she had long since forgiven Undyne for her stunt. Anita and Phoebe, on the other hand, weren’t so pleased, especially after this week, but Anita knew it was more you than them—that they haven’t actually done anything wrong—and Phoebe figured that you’d call her if things became really bad. So they too accepted your decision.

Which left you with a bag of goodies that you knew you wouldn’t be able to eat alone and an equally useless bag of feathers in your chest that did nothing for you except restrict your breath.

You knocked again, and this time Alphys rushed to the door.

“O-oh my gosh, I’m so s-sorry. Were you waiting long?”

“No, its fine, I wasn’t waiting long. Don’t worry about it.”

You tried to smile, to ease her nerves. You weren’t sure if you succeeded, but even if you hadn’t, it didn’t seem to have mattered. She already had retreated back into the safe comfort of her house, most likely flustered from you agreeing to come for the first time in two weeks. You tried to tell yourself that everything would be fine, that her crazy girlfriend wasn’t there, that you wouldn’t be violated, that you’d be safe and have fun and have a good time—

“What’s taking you so long, punk? Come on in already!”

…Oh no.

No, no, no.

Sprawled on a chair in the dining room was Undyne, with a can of coke in her name. She was staring right at you with the most intense expression you’ve ever seen, and immediately you flinched.

You didn’t want to see her.

Why didn’t Alphys tell you she was over?

Why didn’t Alphys tell her to _leave_?

…

Well. This was her house after all. You were the guest here, and to complain about someone staying in their own house was…it was unfathomable. But…if you left now, Alphys would probably be hurt, right? Or disgusted at what a selfish person you were, wanting someone else to leave for your own comfort. She may not tell you off, but her girlfriend sure would. And while you really didn’t care what Undyne thought, you knew that she’d be saying what Alphys was thinking and _that_ …that would hurt.

Even if you were that awful so-called friend that didn’t talk to her for almost two weeks because of her girlfriend.

So you tried your best to relax, giving her a small little wave and nod like everything was right and bright in the world when it most certainly was not, and you walked in as casually as you could. Undyne wasn’t convinced, if her disgruntled face was any indication, but did she really expect you to be excited to see her? Like, “hi, you monster who almost bore my soul to the world, how are you doing? How are the kids? Oh, you have none? Well, I’m sure you’ll get some in due time. Still nice to see you regardless!”

No. Just no.

Turning away from her, you opened your bag of snacks, pointing it to Alphys.

“I brought something that we could enjoy. You like ramen, don’t you?”

Alphys peered into the plastic bag too, and when she did, boy did her eyes sparkle. She picked out the kimchi ramen that was buried under all of the other flavored ones that were there—chicken, shrimp, pork, vegetable—and waved it at Undyne. And then it was like a trigger was set off, because Undyne jumped out of her chair and rushed towards you. And you were so scared that you felt your heart liquefy and rush up to your throat, and you could have sworn that your legs became two sticks of jello when you weren’t looking, but you still stood there. Tried to smile when she gave you a big grin and asked if there was any more.

“Yeah,” you replied, “a whole bunch. Here, why don’t you look with Alphys and I’ll prepare something this time. It’s only fair since Alphys cooked something for me the last two times.”

She nodded, not really paying attention, and you used that chance to quickly pry the kimchi bowl from Alphys’ hands, take your own chicken ramen bowl, and fish another kimchi bowl for Undyne before retreating into the kitchen.

The silent kitchen. The one that became your safe haven so as long as Undyne was here.

With the faint noise of some anime theme song playing in the background, you quickly made the ramen portion of it and then took your time nosily rummaging through her fridge to see if she had vegetables to use. You really should have brought your own, but you didn’t think about it until after you were in front of her door and knocked. But it didn’t seem to matter, because she had a fridge full of stuff that you only wish you had in yours. A lot of the stuff here was expensive though…tariffs made foreign imports expensive. Orange juice was relatively cheap, but other juices, which her fridge was loaded with, such as grape juice and pomegranate juice and peach strawberry juice—those were expensive. And you found yourself envying her for having such a good job that she could afford all these luxuries while you—you tried to get a small job. And you managed to land one, too.

…

People don’t really like nervous wrecks very much.

After that, you had decided to just finish your education to the best of your abilities, although at this point your education was leaning towards a more liberal arts degree than anything else, even more than your supposed major. Because well, you flunked out of one of the most fundamental introduction courses leading to the declaration of your major. Once. Twice. And then you withdrew the last time and decided to concentrate on getting through your core classes required to graduate. If your father knew what you were doing, he’d be rolling in his grave right about now. Your mother too. She’d probably chastise you a bit, push you to work a bit harder so you could be successful.

Brooding on the past and contemplating on the present made you tired. You sighed heavily, leaning back on Alphys’ obsidian counter, and then your eyes made four with another green set. Startled, you yelped, missing the boiling pot with all of your noodles and the neatly cut vegetables by a hair. Your hand was clenched at your side, and she noticed that before you did and also stiffened, most likely ready to fight you as well. But you didn’t care about that. You just wanted to know why the hell she decided to scare the ever loving shit out of you when she could have said something.

“I-I didn’t notice you there,” you stammered, clutching your chest with your other hand. You leaned back, and so did Undyne, her stance relaxing almost completely. “How long were you standing there?”

“A while,” she finally responded. “You were just staring out into space.” And then she looked a bit more peeved, stomping forward and pushing you away from the pots and vegetables and more towards the dripping sink. “What the hell do you think you were doing, spacing out like that? What if you got hurt?”

You knew she didn’t really care—it was probably Alphys or something why she was concerned. Well boo hoo, you got hurt all the time. It was a part of being human. If you decided that you wanted to burn yourself dazing off and thinking about lilies, then you damn well could, and this monster who didn’t even know you wasn’t going to stop you just because she didn’t want her girlfriend to worry.

Not that you were going to tell her that.

“I’m really sorry,” you say, but your voice falls a little flat, making your apology seem a few stones away from insincere. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

And she probably notices—no, she _definitely_ notices your insincerity, and she moves back, folding her arms and breathing an impatient huff from her nose.

“Listen,” she started, “I get that I did something wrong. I know it was an assed move to have Alphys apologize for me. I should have did it myself but—I didn’t, and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for trying to take out your soul. It’s just—I don’t know any nice humans, okay?! I don’t know a human that would genuinely want to be Al’s friend even though she’s the coolest girl in the world—because humans don’t see that, they just see this.”

She gestured a bit wildly to her body, giving you an apologetic look. “And I know that sounds prejudiced or racist or whatever you humans call it, but for me, for _us_ , it’s been the truth these last six years. And the last thing I need is for my girlfriend of almost a decade to die because some—because of an accident beyond her control. Or whatever. I don’t even know, damn it.”

You probably should feel really upset right now. You probably should be disgusted because she sounded so incredibly rude and—wasn’t she about to say something not too nice about you?—was generalizing humans like that, because not all people were the same, hell, you were in her kitchen, eating her damn food weren’t you? You were going the extra ten miles to prove that no, not all humans were the same. There were some mean ones, sure, but there were some really nice ones too, weren’t they…?

…you don’t know how you could prove that there were nice people when you didn’t know any yourself.

But that didn’t matter. They were out there, rare as they may be. But when you thought about their contract with the government—the fact that their peace offering was used to make the very shackles they were wearing, and that despite this, they were still trying to be hospitable to a degree, even becoming friends with someone like you—that old saying that monsters were made up of nothing but love and magic had to be true, huh?

And Undyne, too. You disliked her loud personality, but it’s true that had you not been with Alphys that night, she wouldn’t have attacked you. While it was true that the monsters had a strict contract, they could find ways to circumvent it. There was always a way to circumvent the law. Whether or not you knew how to do it was another story, but the option was there. And if there were others just as smart as Alphys, you knew that they could have done it at any time. They could have hurt _you_ at any time.

…

You won’t give her a chance. Because had Undyne seen your soul—you don’t know if a regular soul looked as perfect and pretty as the ones you saw on those diagram, but you knew for a fact your soul didn’t look anything like that just by the way Anita cautioned you not to let anyone see your soul—by the fact that Undyne would have thought you a threat for sure and killed you.

At the same time, as brash and rude as she was, she was real. She wasn’t trying to entertain you with those plastic smiles you hated so much, and she wasn’t outright ignoring you. She was being real with you. Blatantly, almost caustically real. But she was honest. She was sincere. And to those she loved, she was fiercely kind.

You kind of wish you had someone like her in your life when you needed it most. Perhaps you wouldn’t have been so fucked up like the way you are now.

All this time, you were thinking about her, not realizing that Undyne was trying to justify herself all this time. She finished up her eight or so minute monologue by saying, “And you saved me that time. I never thanked you for that either, because that guy was a real bastard. Like, who the hell does he think he is? Being that demanding to an officer? Would he treat his own damn human officers like that? I don’t think so. If I didn’t have this stupid thing on, I’d have bashed his ugly ass face ten times over…!”

You cracked a smile, not really because she was funny, but because she was so animated. It was like watching a vulgar version of Imani. But she took that to mean that you liked her rants, and you didn’t bother correct her. It’s not like she was wrong; you did enjoy it, just not for the reasons she was thinking.

So maybe you wouldn’t give her a chance.

But you would forgive her.

Just this once.

Undyne leaned forward a little too close, and you started. Satisfied that she had your full attention, she said, “So. Are we cool now?”

Weighting on how you should respond, you decided to go for a new slate. “Sure. So as long as you don’t try to take out my soul again, I’ll forgive you.”

Holding out your hand, you formally introduced yourself, just like you see other people do it.

And seeing that you were finally willing to accept her even a little bit, Undyne’s grin became even wider. She grasped your hand with as much finesse as a seal and as much passion as she spoke, but she was genuinely happy that you were giving her a chance. Not shying away from Alphys because of her.

You could feel something floating inside of you happily.


End file.
